WOMEN in their forties, fifties and sixties screamed like teenagers, jumped to their feet, danced, sang and waved their arms as their long dead idol was brought back to life in This Is Elvis at The New Wimbledon Theatre this week.

The show features more than 30 of Elvis Presley's greatest hits including Love Me Tender, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, It's Now Or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight? And the audience loved it.

Certainly the songs and the performance of the charismatic Simon Bowman as Elvis were sensational. Bowman, who has starred in the West End in Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and The Phantom Of The Opera, has a marvellously powerful singing voice and he hit all the high notes perfectly.

But it was rather unreal.The star of the show was not acknowledged as Simon Bowman at all - all the cries from the audience were for "Elvis" and it seemed many felt they were seeing the King reserrected.

There was little in the way of a story. We were taken back to 1968 as Presley pepares to make his first live TV special in what was known as The '68 Comeback Special. The event, followed 12 months later by his first live performance for seven years at the International Hotel in Vegas, re-established the King of Rock 'n' Roll as the world's top singer.

We were given an insight into Presley's problems with his demanding manager Colonel Tom Parker and his beautiful wife Priscilla, but, disappointingly, we did not see the two most important people in his adult life - we just heard his end of telephone conversations with them.

But there were many pluses, not least the excellent vocal and musical support provided by Tim Harwood, Andy Pelos, Kludo White, Tom Clare, Morgan Davies, Matt Hill and Matt Smith.

And Simon Bowman, dazzling in white sequined suit, recreated Elvis' Las Vegas performance so well that the audience was still yelling for more 15 minutes after he said farewell.