Andrew Lloyd Webber’s baffling musical, “Starlight Express” — in which trains, represented by performers on roller skates, compete in a championship at the behest of a little boy who is dreaming the whole thing — was a big West End hit in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Forty years after its 1984 premiere, it returns with a new production, this time in a purpose-built auditorium about 10 miles west of the theater district.
This “Starlight Express,” directed by Luke Sheppard and running through Feb. 16, 2025, channels heady nostalgia for the recent past. The set design and sound effects are redolent of ‘90s video games and British TV game shows like “Gladiators”; the glittery, sci-fi costumes are reminiscent of “Power Rangers.” The show is a dazzlingly produced family entertainment with impressive special effects, but its appeal consists almost entirely in sensory overload rather than plot, music or drama.
Our unlikely hero, the steam engine Rusty (Jeevan Braich), is initially intimidated by his competitors, the electric and diesel trains Electra (Tom Pigram) and Greaseball (Al Knott). Rusty’s got hots for a railroad car called Pearl (Kayna Montecillo), but she’s not sure if she likes him in that way. After several setbacks and some soul-searching, he teams up with a hydrogen engine, Hydra (Jaydon Vijn), to win both the race and the girl. Essentially it’s “The Karate Kid,” with trains.
A talented cast do their best to breathe life into this somewhat unoriginal tale. Branch plays Rusty with just the right blend of halting self-doubt and plucky determination, and the baddies are rendered with cartoonish bravado. But the real star of the show is Tim Hatley’s spectacular set, with its racing track that snakes out from the stage into the audience seating, so that the performers occasionally zoom right through, complemented by an array of incredibly slick visuals: steam jets, flame effects, laser beams.
Lloyd Webber’s music is a mélange of upbeat ‘80s pop, punctuated by several ballads and a rap number. They sound more derivative than the songs in his other shows: One melody is strikingly similar to ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me”; another sounds uncannily like “Cars” by Gary Numan. Since the original musical was criticized as portraying female rail cars in a sexist way, this revival has been amended to feature an empowering number entitled “I Am Me,” first introduced in a 2018 German production, in which those carriages remind us that they aren’t defined by their attachment to any particular engine — moreover, they are integral to the proper functioning of a transportation system. (“Without us, you don’t get no fares.”)
How can something so bonkers come across as so drab? The best family entertainment appeals not only to children’s imaginative whimsy but also to their intellect. But “Starlight Express” has no recognizable point of connection with any aspect of real human existence.
That needn’t stand in the way of commercial success. There is, of course, a large audience for maximalist kitsch, as the enduring popularity of the Eurovision Song Contest attests. There is also the question of the target audience. In the interests of journalistic rigor, I took a 6-year-old with me to the show. It’s fair to say he was transfixed and delighted by the special effects — and on these terms at least, the show can be said to be a triumph — although subsequent interrogations revealed he was a little muddled about the story. But “Starlight Express” is more theme park than theater. It’s Legoland for the stage.
In his playbill notes, Lloyd Webber recalls how the show was originally inspired by his love of the “Thomas the Tank Engine” children’s books. But the connection between that inspiration and the end product was always rather tenuous and abstract. A human being representing a train doesn’t have quite the same irresistible charm as an animated, anthropomorphized machine. That this musical ever became such a huge hit is one of the great mysteries of modern showbiz. Maybe it had something to do with the roller skating boom of the ‘80s, when wheeled boots felt zeitgeisty in a way that’s hard to imagine now.
Today, “Starlight Express” takes its place on the nostalgia circuit, where questions of artistic merit are secondary to vibes. On social media this week, British theatergoers who saw the show as children in the ‘80s have been posting excitedly about their plans to take their own kids to see this new production. The gravy train rolls on; full steam ahead.
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