EVA CASSIDY died in 1996 at the age of 33, still virtually unknown, certainly to audiences in the UK.

This is a reconstruction of her short life and the story is inevitably flimsy, but punctuated with nearly 30 examples of Cassidy’s eclectic musical style.

Sarah Jane Buckley has a fine voice, powerful when it needs to be, yet trembling with emotion in the tender ballads, which I personally feel suited Cassidy the best. Sting’s Fields of Gold, Kathy’s Song by Paul Simon and the sublime Songbird, by Fleetwood Mac’s Chrissie McVie, all had the audience enthralled.

Cassidy was a nature lover, intoxicated with the beauty she saw all around her, and if the story is to be believed, beloved by all whose lives she touched.

Her family is portrayed as wholesome and sweet, apart from the father, who clashed with Cassidy over her lack of ambition and tried to direct her down musical paths which didn’t feel comfortable to her.

But of course it was all done out of love. It’s a hard-hearted theatre-goer that doesn’t have the tissues out in the closing 15 minutes.

Cassidy died of cancer, and the final few songs are performed with the character in a wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket and weak from chemotherapy, her heartbroken mother at her side.

The relentless mawkishness continues even to the finale, when a dying Cassidy turns up at her own tribute concert and delivers a surprisingly powerful What a Wonderful World.

Anyone who admires her music should see this show, because Eva Cassidy is, as the writer puts it, no longer here, but still with us.

Sue Heath