50 Favourite Musicals: 45: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE (1990) (Louis Jordan / various)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1990, Theatre Royal Stratford East
First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: three

Score: various

Book: Clarke Peters

Plot: Nomax, down on his luck and left by his woman, is is visited by the five guys named Moe who appear out of his radio and bring him back to happiness through the songs of jazz legend Louis Jordan.

Five memorable numbers: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE, DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING, I LIKE 'EM FAT LIKE THAT, SATURDAY NIGHT FISH FRY, CHOO CHOO CH'BOOGIE

Short on plot but big on joy, Clarke Peters' tribute show celebrates the back catalogue of Louis Jordan whose recordings span the 1930s big band jazz sound through the jump 'n' jive swing years to the early stirrings of rhythm and blues that led to rock & roll.  Starting at Stratford East - where I was lucky to see it - the show conga'd into the West End where it ran for over four years; on Broadway it ran for over a year.  In 2010 the show appeared again at Stratford East where I saw it again and had the great joy of meeting Clarke Peters.  MOE memories include sitting in the prompt-side box at Stratford East in 1990 with Ann Molloy and Suzanne Golden who memorably held the show up because she didn't have a lyric sheet in her programme - Peters had to go into the audience to find a spare one - and when I saw the West End transfer at the Lyric with friend Guy, on his last night in the UK before leaving to work in Brazil, we were seated next to Ben and Tracey from Everything But The Girl!

Here is Clarke Peters with a revival cast in 1998 appearing in the Cameron Mackintosh tribute show HEY MR PRODUCER! singing a medley of the title song, HURRY HOME, IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN'T MY BABY and DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING...