It featured a double decker bus and teen heartthrob Cliff Richard.

Now a new stage version of Summer Holiday brings the famous red double decker bus to Dartford, signalling it's time for some late summer kicks.

Based on the 1960s film, Summer Holiday, about a group of friends who travel across Europe in the London Transport bus, originally starred a fresh-faced young Cliff Richard and the Shadows and featured plenty of hits from the chart toppers at the time.

The hit-filled musical is packed with some of the biggest 60s songs including In the Country, Summer Holiday, Travellin’ Light, Bachelor Boy, Move It, Living Doll, The Young Ones and On the Beach.

Taking on the lead role of Don made famous by Cliff, is singer-songwriter Ray Quinn. Ray shot to fame as runner-up in The X-Factor back in 2006, after which he starred in Channel 4's Brookside and went on to release an album, Doing it My Way, which entered the charts at No.1.

Also a famous face as a winner of Dancing on Ice in and Dancing on Ice: Champion of Champions in 2014, Ray has carved out a music theatre career, starring in shows including Grease and Dirty Dancing in the West End and most recently, The Wedding Singer, which also came to the Orchard.

Summer Holiday tells the story of Don and his fellow London Transport mechanics as they journey together in a red double-decker bus through Paris, the Alps, Italy and Greece.

Along the way they pick up a girl singing group and a young American pop star who is on the run from her domineering mother.

The role of Jerry is played by Wayne Smith, while Sophie Matthew plays runaway singer, Barbara, with Taryn Sudding taking on the role of Stella, her fame-hungry mother. Sophie is best known for playing Ginny in Humans on Channel 4.

Taryn played Bombalurina in the hugely successful musical Cats, touring around the world over a 14-year period.

DETAILS

Summer Holiday is at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford until Saturday, September 8. To buy tickets, visit orchardtheatre.co.uk or call 01322 220000. For more details, you can also visit summerholidaythemusical.co.uk

DID YOU KNOW?

The film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1963. But it flopped in the US when it was released two days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

There are 16 song and musical numbers in the film - but Bachelor Boy was recorded afterwards when distributors felt the film wasn't long enough.

The female lead in the film, Lauri Peters, had her singing dubbed by session vocalist Grazina Frame, who had also overdubbed the female singing voices in Cliff Richard's earlier film The Young Ones.