15 June – 22 August

On 4^th December, 1956 four men entered a converted car parts store in Memphis, Tennessee, picked up their musical instruments and created history. The building was home to Sun Records, owned by legendary music producer Sam Phillips. You may also recognise the names of the four men: Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and a certain Elvis Presley. All at different stages of their illustrious music careers, this impromptu music-making session would be the only occasion these four would play together, leading Bob Johnson, entertainment editor for the Memphis Press-Scimitar, to report “these four artists could sell a million”.

This auspicious day forms the backdrop of Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux’s story which premiered in 2006 and which has been revived at the Barn Theatre following an acclaimed run in 2022. It is a high-energy jukebox musical which both celebrates and recreates some of the most iconic rock’n’roll numbers of the late 1950s.

Director Jonathan O’Boyle has assembled a prodigiously talented cast of actor musicians who present interpretations rather than impersonations of this particular “fab four”. Connor Payne, Chris Erasmus, Joey Bradick and Joe Bence (as Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis respectively) are, nonetheless, impressive simulacra in a production which relies heavily on a concert feel but which is given narrative texture by the collision of different egos, the tensions which lie beneath the surface (Perkins’s resentment of Presley’s repurposing of his “Blue Suede Shoes”, for example) and the very future of Sun Records itself. Brief flashbacks also provide the origin stories for each singer and their initial meeting with Phillips. Bence turns in a particularly impressive and energetic performance, nabbing all the best comic lines as “firecracker” upstart Lewis and showcasing his phenomenal dexterity and skill on the piano.

While history confirms this jam session did indeed take place over at least two hours that afternoon, the meeting was largely accidental, with the play embellishing and glamourising real-life events of the day for dramatic and narrative purposes: Lewis was, at the time, an unknown session musician, a raw, precocious talent on the piano drafted in to accompany Perkins, while several of the show’s best-known numbers were as yet unreleased in 1956. Presley’s real-life girlfriend at the time, a nineteen year-old, non-singing dancer named Marilyn Evans, in the show becomes Dyanne, played impressively by Jenay Naima, who gets two numbers all to herself, including a stunning version of Peggy Lee’s Fever ….which wasn’t released until 1958. Details, details.

Darren Day gives an affecting performance as Phillips, dubbed “The Father of Rock’n’Roll” by Elvis but who sees three of his “sons” desert him, with Presley already signed to RCA and Perkins and Cash about to head to Columbia, a bombshell withheld from Phillips until the show’s denouement; herein lies both the show’s narrative tension as well as its poignancy. In reality, it’s a largely contrived plotline intended to act as a vehicle for the show’s 23 musical numbers, including a rousing four-song encore which brought an enthusiastic Cirencester audience to their feet.

Libby Watson’s set and costume design is visually impressive too, the static stage decked out with some neat period touches to add 50s authenticity, while Alex Musgrave’s lighting, as with the majority of live music performances, is vibrant and colourful. Ultimately, Million Dollar Quartet will strike numerous chords for audience members of a certain age with its affectionate evocation of a golden age of rock’n’roll. And what it may lack in terms of drama and theatricality, it more than makes up for in nostalgia and musicality.

★★★★☆ Tony Clarke 19 June 2026

Photographer’s credit @ Alex Tabrizi