It’s been a long time coming, but Starlight Express has skated itself back to London for the first time since 2002.
Wembley’s Troubadour Theatre has been transformed to house the return of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s utterly bizarre and iconic 80’s musical about a series of trains (performed by actors on roller skates) that compete in a series of races – all taking place from inside the head of a child (‘Control’).
This new production of the show is, as it has always been, a spectacular achievement. It can’t be stressed enough how little weight the plot has, but the experience is such a spectacle that, come curtain call, it manages to leave every audience member with a beaming smile on their face and perhaps a nostalgic-inducing tear.
The dazzling new Troubadour set, the lighting and video effects, the so-camp hair and costumes (which look like a techno merger of Abba’s Super Troopers and C3PO) and the music with melodies that stick with you across literal decades are on full and confident display here.
As is, of course, the literal danger of this performance. We’re talking about an electric, constant current of dancers skating, cross-skating, race-skating across various levels like Mario Kart, and some quite terrifying 360 scooter flips.
Our performance was actually paused for ten minutes as a tiny piece of the stage racetrack had to be fixed. The audience – having already seen the breathtaking and incredibly complex opening number – appeared to entirely understand the severity and the necessity of the repair.
Famously (at least within Starlight lore circles), intentional crashes were actually choreographed into the Broadway production to cover up the regular crashes that would take place during every performance, so the audience would never be sure if it was real or not.
As one critic of the 90s production once said: ‘I really think Andrew Lloyd Webber was trying to kill people here’.
There are changes; Control is now played charismatically by a young actor on stage and some songs are omitted (RIP the problematic ‘A Lotta Locomotion’) although the excruciatingly catchy ‘Hydrogen’ feels instantly canon.
The added scenes also give the protagonist steam engine Rusty (the talented 18-year-old Jeevan Braich in his first professional role) some additional reasons for the audience to root for him in his pursuit of the classy first-class carriage Pearl (Kayna Montecillo).
Both Braich and Montecillo – considering they are playing trains – give wonderfully vulnerable performances while skating effortlessly across the track in a series of locomotive-style A Whole New World numbers, and are names to watch out for.
Their performance and the added scenes help, but unfortunately don’t quite help enough to truly sell the narrative of the romance or the stakes of the races.
Not much of that can be blamed on the performers, the direction or the technology though, as it’s an issue Starlight has always had and never managed to fix.
But to criticise the slightly loose plot in a musical that is about non-stop spectacle feels a little unnecessary, especially as it is easily forgotten when the melody of ‘Whistle at Me’ plays and you find yourself unironically believing in train love.
The rest of the cast – full of actors making their professional debuts – are all excellent and seemingly bionic – such is the masterful skill needed to execute such a performance while skating at 30mph.
Greaseball (played by Lara Vina Uzcatia in our performance) – with her villainous tone and fabulously menacing skating – is the pick of the bunch (amusing as it is to consider the ‘can’t change gender’ crowd getting their tracks in a twist over the gender of a diesel engine).
Electra (Tom Pigram)’s extraordinarily over-the-top entrance is another stand-out moment, leaving you both entirely bewildered and in a state of unadulterated joy.
But for all the technical spectacle, this is, and has always been, an exhilarating bat s*** sensation of a show which brilliance allows you to sing the lyric ‘Freight is great’ out loud without shame.
And for those of us with a musical inclination and an older than 2000 birthday – seeing the set transform from a child’s bedroom to the otherworldly, 80s voyage of engine racers is still just as magical and tear-inducing as its original production was.
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