Starlight Express: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s blockbuster makes a souped-up, jaw-dropping return

Jeevan Braich (Rusty) and the cast of Starlight Express - Pamela Raith

There are glitter balls a go-go suspended from the foyer ceiling at the Troubadour in Wembley, showering light everywhere. That in itself announces the head-spinning wonderland that director Luke Sheppard and co have conjured, as they trundle Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express out from the depot, 40 years after its maiden journey, and send it whizzingly skating around a state-of-the-art theatrical environment.

The initial visual suggestion is of a planetarium meets a roller-disco – and that’s elaborated in jaw-dropping style once you’re inside the thousand-plus-seat auditorium. Coming at you from all sides and immaculately conceived from every angle, Sheppard’s gleaming production makes it manifest that this description-defying blockbuster – part theme-park ride, part theatrical revolution – has been made-over for the 21st century. By the end of its West End run at the Apollo Victoria in early 2002, Lloyd Webber’s most family-friendly show wasn’t on its last legs but had still run its course, its original momentum gone.

Souping up the sound, with some early numbers banished and new ones introduced, Sheppard hands ownership to a new generation; the pivotal child-character of “Control” (formerly a voice-over) comes into the frame. At the press night I attended, an irrepressible Cristian Buttaci was the pyjama-clad scamp whose dream-world of train-races stirs to life once his mother (Jade Marvin’s Momma, superb) has lullaby’d him to beddy-byes.

Critics have sneered over the years at the spectacle for being sanitised and lacking sophistication. True, there’s not much grit, and the lyrics by Richard Stilgoe can be as bland as an old British Rail sandwich. But there’s much magic and life-affirming meaning (alongside modish eco ramifications) in the show’s underdog tale of a sidelined steam engine called Rusty (a charismatic Jeevan Braich) vying with posturing diesel Greaseball (Al Knott) and fabulously preening Electra (Tom Pigram), to win out, and get hitched to his perfect carriage Pearl (Kayna Montecillo).

Starlight Express: Jade Marvin is superb as Momma - Pamela Raith

And what a trip it is. As the inklings of the show’s moving, oft reprised title song are heard, initially with wistful harmonica, building to anthemic gravitas, it’s as if we enter the boundless imagination of a child’s head. The tracks crisscross the seating and rise up two ramps to a central vertiginous drop. The lighting and video-work (Howard Hudson/ Andrzej Goulding) is one obvious new advance, combining liquid fluidity with laser-beam precision. Beautiful star-systems move from far afield to right over your head in the most spellbinding second-half sequence.

Still, you can’t beat the old-fashioned thrill of lavishly attired actors (Gabriella Slade crams the retro-futurist clobber with detail) singing as they skate at full-pelt. The choreography (Ashley Nottingham in consultation with Arlene Phillips) is matchingly robust, answering the variety of characters and musical styles (gospel, rap, ballad, country too). You might carp that the venue size doesn’t allow for break-neck speeds, but the ease with which the welter of coaches, trucks, engines and components make their presence felt, coolly gliding past, with much footwork and dare-devil stunts too, has its own continual wow-factor. The energy and bravura of it all are frankly out of this world. See it, cheer it, sorted.

Booking until Feb 16, 2025; tickets: starlightexpresslondon.com

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