NEW Jersey Nights is a celebration of the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, but singer Duncan Heather stresses it is “completely different from Jersey Boys”, the West End hit musical.

“We’re not playing Frankie and the group members and there’s no dialogue between them. We speak about the group and the songs as ourselves,” he says, ahead of next week’s upcoming performances in York at the Grand Opera House.

“It’s more of a tribute revue, but then ‘tribute’ is not the right word either. What we’re trying to honour is the sound.

“When you meet people of all ages at the stage door, from 17 to 90, no-one can believe just how many fantastic songs Frankie did: songs that they’ve heard but didn’t realise were associated with him.”

Duncan, from Salisbury on the English south coast, is the only member of the company to have appeared in an earlier American version of the show. “I did it for the production company in the USA in October last year, when we opened in Reno and took the show to Niagara Falls,” says Duncan.

“At that time, it was a 75-minute concert as they like these shows more as a casino show with no interval, but we’ve added more material over here, with a couple of ‘girl songs’, to make it more of a rollercoaster – whereas over there they want to hit you hard for 75 minutes.”

Duncan was sent over to the USA to “do the Frankie role” in the show, but the British touring version has four strong lead vocalists. “We share out the lead vocals.

For example, I do Walk Like A Man and I do one of the show’s delicate moments: an acoustic version of Fallen Angel, which we dedicate to Frankie’s daughters. One was killed in a car crash; the other died of an overdose, but Frankie found comfort in his music to carry on,” he says.

A couple of Phil Spector songs, The Ronettes’ Be My Baby and The Crystals’ Da Doo Ron Ron, provide “nice sea changes” for the girl dancers in the company to perform. “Everything else in the show has been done by Frankie at some point, like his version of My Girl, which he recorded ten years ago, and his version of Unchained Melody,” says Duncan.

“We do the songs chronologically, but with some ‘looser’ songs in the middle that people might not recognise as being linked with him.”

The show’s dancers do the set changes and dance with the show’s singers in the big numbers. “That’s what makes it more of a revue, rather than just having the four singers coming on and singing,” says Duncan. “We have Emma Rogers directing and choreographing the show, having choreographed it in America originally.”

Duncan, who also tours Britain and Europe with his solo show, Duncan Heather…More Than A Tenor, has to decide whether to remain in New Jersey Nights until the end of the year, now that the tour is being extended.

“I’d love to stay but that would mean I’d left my own stuff for a year, when I’d been working on some original compositions for release, but the show has a dark period in May and June before the tour starts up again in July, so maybe I could use that time.”

He has other plans too. “I’m married now; my wife Samantha is in the show, which is nice for us,” says Duncan, who turned 34 on April 7. “She’s the dance captain, so it’s great that we can be together – and we’re looking to start a family.”

New Jersey Nights runs at Grand Opera House, York, from May 2 to 4, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york