Starlight Express - Troubadour

Not speaking for mrbarnaby but I thought the same thing when I saw Electra yesterday.  The actor has a Clary-esque manner - it might be their height or possibly the hair.

Saw this at the weekend - I would give this show 3 stars. Felt pretty underwhelmed by it all.

I've long considered Starlight to be one of my favourite shows of all time. I feel like this version has been stripped of anything that gave it some edge and excitement - it feels very safe and almost like a Disney theme park show.

Really liked the addition of Hydra and the Hydrogen song - felt like the only modern update that worked to me, and the actor was probably the best skater in the cast.

None of the characters had any chemistry to me, didn't feel like the love story or song between Pearl and Rusty had been earned. Greaseball and Dinah seemed to barely interact.

I was fully on board for the gender switching of characters, but I don't understand why this led to stripping Greaseball of all defining characteristics. Always felt that Greaseball and Dinah being American was an intrinsic part of their character. The Elvis influence is gone and I didn't get any sense of the slimy, egotistical qualities that made Greaseball what he originally was. In a similar way, hearing Dinah sing UNCOUPLED with a strong British accent without any country twang was just disappointing.

I'm not really a fan of a lot of pop contemporary musical theatre scores, and the new songs just sounded like something out of Six. I'm sure this show will appeal to a lot of people, but as a longtime fan, this version isn't for me.

As a side note, I'm amazed how good the sound was in there in comparison to Newsies.

Did you mean to go to Swan Lake?

The scooters were more impressive than the skaters!

They've upped the ante with the scooters since last week - the marshalls are all pro scooter riders and I'd imagine having them on a retainer is possibly more expensive than an actor. Personally, I would love to see Danny Macaskill get in there on his bike www.dannymacaskill.co.uk/ but he might blow the budget. I think there is room for more scooter action, but that would need the skaters to speed up as the scooter riders are probably the quickest on the track (other than Hydra, perhaps, who did a sublime reverse exit from the centre to the audience exit doors on Sunday at a not insignificant speed).

David Brown (Golden Eagle) has done several years in Bochum, most recently spending 2 years as first cast Greaseball. He is an incredible skater. At the Troubadour I don't think you can really see much difference between what he is doing and what the other engines (who haven't done Starlight before) are doing.

I think the speed of skating and the choreography on skates is a decision and directed as such. So I don't massively think changes "as they get more confident" is gonna be a (massively) noticeable thing (to the average punter). Unless they actively decide to change direction/choreography!

Yes Hydra is a very strong skater but I think what he does was decided for the character (very much the cool kid on the block) as much as gifted by the actor.

What are these "scooters" being talked about? Are they like motorbikes or those 3 wheeled things little kids have?

It's not exactly deep, is it?!

I personally found the scooters fun though, they add a bit of drama and funky tricks that don't distract from the show and are only there for a few moments. I'd rather see them do the tricks and not the main cast to prevent injuries, they do seem to have a lot of swings and coverage which is good to see but I imagine injuries are quite frequent even without doing anything fancy!

Thanks for that. Now I know it's those bl**dy things the kids have at the school opposite me and crash into me on a daily basis.

Lots of singles for the rest of the week now down to £29.50. Just got a great one for Thursday mat

Can i ask please where everyone is getting their £195 tickets reduced to £29.50?