Starlight Express is back on the rails
“Nobody can do it like a steam train.” Rusty
“Oil is the work of the Diesel!” Momma
Twenty two years after it closed in Victoria, Starlight Express finds a new track at the Troubadour in Wembley Park. I can only dimly remember the show I saw on its 15th Birthday in 1999 but I do remember being impressed by its energy and the enthusiasm of the cast. What we have now in 2024 is altogether more spectacular with a larger Skating area and the most magnificent costumes by Gabriella Slade, state of the art lighting and lasers and special effects. The foyer has been lit with a thousand glitter balls and if you look down at the shifting light, it can be disorienting.
Ecologically we may have moved on from the reign of steam trains running on fossil fuels but the writers have brough it a bit up to date with Hydrogen as Hydra (Jason Vijn) in spectacular greens set to oust Electric cars and petrol ones. However in this show Electra (Tom Pigram) is magnificent with lightning flashes forming a large 3D backdrop to his costume. Electra also has a gang of four acolytes, with blonde hair and blue lit costumes.
The basic format remains of a boy Control (Cristian Butaci) playing with his train set after he was meant to go to sleep, having been put to bed by Momma (Jade Marvin). Girls will play Control on other nights. Poppa has ended up on the 2024 cutting room floor.
The concept is the same as an engine and a coach will compete in the races. The outsider is the Steam train Rusty (Jeevan Braich) who falls for the coach Pearl (Kayna Montecillo). There is intense rivalry between Greaseball (Al Knott) who shows lots of machismo and all the other engines.
The contests or races bear some resemblance to medieval jousting with figures dressed as elaborate knights with gauntlets and helmets and wielding large flags. The race marshals and Control will travel on scooters instead of skates. The engines and coaches have backpacks with colour coded lighting, their lit up initials on the front of their breastplates and some with gauntlets that light up. But it is the chase skating on the tracks which is the most exciting.
As a show it is big and brash and amplified but the spectacle is breathtaking. A new song “I Am Me” allows the coaches to express their identity. Some of the lyrics appear simplistic for instance “Freight is Great” but maybe freight trains aren’t the most articulate and poetic of rolling stock. Although many of the lyrics are monosyllabic, I loved Richard Stilgoe’s lyrics to the song UNCOUPLED by Dinah, Belle and Tassita as romantic parallels are drawn between engines and coaches.
Jade Marvin as Momma sings “Momma’s Blues” a musical highlight of the show but it is the frequent returns to the pretty song “Starlight Express” that will have you singing this at the end of the night.
The opening of Act Two has “The Rap” with a hip hop type beat. Pearl is seduced by Greaseball and there are plenty of flares, steam flumes, fireworks and flames onstage. A race is cancelled when there is fire on the tracks but rerun. The whole auditorium can be lit by a giant glitterball, or by stars or descending planets and it is the stars which are seen throughout for Rusty’s big number the “Starlight Sequence.”
The finale of the “Light at the End of the Tunnel” succeeds and Momma leads a victory parade of all the skaters together as a pure celebration.
Starlight Express is not a subtle evening but one served with stylish panache and great visuals which the production photographs do not really do justice to.
Musical Numbers
Act One
Overture /Entry of Trains
Rolling Stock
Crazy
Call Me Rusty
I Am Me
Whistle at Me
Freight
AC/DC
Pumping Iron
Coda of Freight
Make Up My Heart
Race One
Momma’s Blues
Race Two
Laughing Stock
Starlight Express
Act Two
The Rap
UNCOUPLED
Wide Smile
Race Three
Starlight Sequence
Hydrogen
Pre Race Four
Race Four
Race Four
One Rock ‘N’ Roll Too Many
I Do
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Finale
Production Notes
Production Notes
Starlight Express
Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Richard Stilgoe
Directed by Luke Sheppard
Cast
Starring:
Jeevan Braich
Kayna Montecillo
Jade Marvin
Al Knott
Eve Humphrey
Tom Pigram
With:
Ashlyn Weeks
Renz Cardinas
Jaden Vijn
Lewis Kidd
Harrison Peterkin
Emily Martinez
Jessica Vaux
Asher Forth
David Peter Brown
Oscar Cong
Marianthe Panas
Pablo Gõmez Jones
Lilianna Hendy
Catherine Cornwall
Ollie Augustin
Swing:
Kelly Downing
Lucy Glover
Hannah Kiss
Laura Vina Uzcatia
Jesse Angell
Bethany Rose Lythgoe
Deearna McLean
Jamie Cruttenden
Gary Sheridan
Scott Hayward
RED
Charles Butcher
Sam Gallacher
Isaac Edwards
Jamie Addison
Jessie Angell
Ollie Augustin
Charles Butcher
Young Actors:
Shaniyah Abrahams
Cristian Buttaci
Alexander Brooks
Barnaby Halliwell
Mimi Soetan
Arabella Stanton.
Creatives
Director: Luke Sheppard
Choreographer: Ashley Nottingham
Creative Dramaturg: Arlene Phillips
Set Designer: Tim Hatley
Costume Designer: Gabrielle Slade
Musical Supervisor and New
Orchestrations:
Matthew Brind
Musical Supervisor:
David Andrew Wilson
Lighting Designer: Howard Hudson
Sound Designer: Gareth Owen
Video and Projection: Andrzej Golding
Musical Director: Laura Bangay
Information
Running Time: Two hours 30 minutes with an interval
Booking until 8th June 2025
Theatre:
Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre
3 Fulton Road
Wembley HA9 0SP
Tube: Wembley Park
Website: starlightexpresslondon.com
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Troubadour Theatre
on 30th June 2024
