It was the supergroup to end all supergroups. Or it could have been if it lasted more than a few fortuitous hours.

This wonderful musical play tells the story of the December day in 1956 when Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis found themselves jamming at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis.

The music they made was extraordinary. Hitmaker and studio boss Phillips looked on in wonder from his control room.

There was no doubt about it. This was “a million dollar quartet. But his dreams of harnessing the combined talents of the young musicians he’d groomed for stardom were dashed.

Presley had already been sold on to RCA to clear Sun’s mounting debts and Perkins and Cash were on the verge of bailing for big careers at Columbia.

It’s a poignant tale and this high-energy show with its classic live rock ’n’ roll soundtrack catches the bittersweet mood as four extraordinary talents come together and capture, in one brief impromptu session, a taste of the magic that could never be.

The actors are all fine musicians.

Rhys Whitfield is the young Elvis enjoying huge success at RCA but wishing he could return to the carefree days at Sun.

Matthew Wycliffe is awesomely talented Carl Perkins who feels he has been overshadowed by the Presley phenomenon.

Robbie Durham is Cash, frustrated by what he sees as the short-comings of a small town music business and Martin Kaye is the cocksure newcomer, the wild piano playing Jerry Lee Lewis. Katie Ray meanwhile plays Elvis’s extremely talented singer girlfriend Dyanne.

Together these brilliant young musicians are unstoppable but contracts are being waved, money is being offered and they must go their separate ways.

For Phillips, played by Peter Duncan, it’s a dreadful loss but all part of the brutal reality of the music business.

This is great show with a full-blooded rock ’n’ roll soundtrack that starts with Blue Suede Shoes and ends with the audience out of their seats and bopping along to Whole Lotta Shaking Going On.

In between there’s hit after hit including an astonishingly thrilling version of Great Balls of Fire.

*Million Dollar Quartet plays Lighthouse, Poole, until Saturday 18th November.