Starlight Express - Troubadour

I wouldn't go to Starlight this weekend just because Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium is going to mean everything will be busy going in, going out and even getting anything to eat before and after unless you time it really well.

Next Saturday has Green Day which won't be anywhere near as bad but I'd avoid it too unless it's the matinee.

And that matters how in a show in which humans on rollerskates pretend to be trains and have love affairs?

I don't think SE is meant to be realistic, it's not Boys from the Blackstuff....

Merged

I applaud your use of the word bobbins.

And your dreams were always absolutely scientifically correct and never went slightly off the rails? (Pun intended.)

Interesting reading the comments about "if you want to see it done properly go to Bochum." Worth mentioning that Bochum has changed a huge amount over the years and really the current version there can he seen as a stepping stone to what we now have in London.

Whilst Bochum is of course still the Nunn/Phillips/Napier version (though really any trace of Nunn's original direction has gone and am not even sure if he's mentioned in the programme), it's definitely not the version it once was and really both that and London are derived from the 2017 The Other Palace workshops.

The workshops lead to the re-launch of Bochum as the 30th anniversary version in 2018. There had been a clear desire from ALW and Stilgoe to redress the gender balance, get rid of possible accusations of sexism (so far so good), make the story clearer, more central and less lost in spectacle (hmmmm) and make it even clearer that it-is-a-child's dream. Music/lyrics wise there were probably more changes from Bochum 25th to Bochum 30th then from Bochum 30th to London now (despite the vast number of new characters it's still musically very similar).

Other things they did were to paint the enormous industrial metallic set black and cover up the sides of the see-saw and profile (that link between levels) with black cloth - reason being it is all now heavily covered in projections. They installed a new lighting system which is state of the art but much more measured than the previous approach (chuck every colour at every song) with themes of lighting much more relevant to the story. The 11 o'clock number, previously performed in a sea of dry ice drowning in pink and baby blue lighting is now a dim projection of a few trees and minimal onstage lighting. Pearl's costume which over the years had more and more pink frills and a pink wig eventually so big am amazed it didn't pull the actor over is now a very simple white outfit and a blond ponytail. Everything has been pulled back. And it lost the kitsch!

Now, having said all that it's still all done at an extraordinary scale and is still (to me) the most impressive staging of a musical in the world. But anyone going expecting to see the London version or the Bochum up to 25th anniversary version may be disappointed.

And interestingly when Bochum 30th was launched, the complaints (which from the German fans were intense) were very similar to what people are saying now about London - namely the racing is now too slow, the choreography has been pulled back far too much and they miss the old costumes! Although the new German fans loved it! And sales that had been flagging for years have had a huge surge. So although it's not the version I fell in love with, I do think the re shaping of the show there probably saved it from a terminal decline.

Sorry that went on a bit - but just occurred to me that a lot of the London complaints mirrored the German 30th complaints (though as I said, Bochum is still way more spectacular and I think a much better production than what we have currently in London. But a definite stepping stone on the way. The current London version has not come out of the blue).

Was reflecting to a close theatre friend, ALW has a dreadful habit (as we all know) of always announcing that a current version of a show is how he always imagined it. (This was surely a nonsense for the most recent Aspects of Love) I do think if and when he says it for this he may actually be telling the truth! By the time Starlight got to Broadway he was pretty clear that Trevor Nunn had run away with it and it was a million miles from the simple Cinderella show for kids he had imagined, lost in the (to my mind incredible) staging and sets. Well, now I think he finally has that simpler version, lead by storytelling framed by an appropriate (to him) amount of spectacle.

Anyway, seeing the London show again this week and massively looking forward to it!

Like many on here Starlight is what brought me to musical theatre. I first saw it at the Apollo Victoria in 1994 when I was 7 and I fell in love with it instantly. Sadly I never got to see it at the AV again but I did go to the tour many, many times during it's various runs.

I was so excited to see Starlight back in London and had long hoped for a Bochum style purpose built production to bring back the scale and spectacle.

I finally saw the show last night. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to take my kids to see it. There was a lot of good:

- I thought Control was wonderful. It was a great update to the show, brought so much more character to what I always felt was quite a vague and pointless role. Having her on stage really worked to me and the kids around me and my wife seemed to really enjoy the presence of someone their own age on stage.

- Rusty was great. Very endearing and innocent. I think Poppa becoming Momma worked well too.

- The Mario Kart-esq graphics for the races was a great move and really highlighted the idea of this being a child's imagination.

- The Starlight sequence was stunning and actually brought a tear to my eye.

- The effects are slick and impressive. They've modernised it well.

However, I do feel on the whole the changes have gone too far and I was disappointed by several things:

- I'm all for the introduction of female trains and I thought that worked well in the case of Momma, but making Greaseball female really took away one of the key elements of the show for me. I idolised the Elvis like buffoon when I was a 7 year old boy! Yes he was a bit of a misogynistic ape, but that was the point. He got his comeuppance. I think the character is totally lost now and doesn't work. I feel it would've been far better to have Electra played by a female lead and leave Greaseball as is. We've now swapped Elvis for Toya Wilcox!

- The removal of the national trains also takes away a lot from the show for me. It felt like there was no reason to root for any of the secondary engines. The national stereotypes used previously were hardly offensive but added some subtle comedy and were self deprecating, particularly in the case of the British engine. All personality has now been lost from the non-principle engines. I really missed the Entry of the National Trains and the build up of tension and expectation.

- The costumes. Oh dear. Frankly if I hadn't seen the show previously I would have forgotten that it was about trains. The colourful, cartoonish anime style is just awful. Not a hint of the characters being trains and wagons. I was really disappointed to see a lack of the original style helmets in favour of what looked just like normal bike helmets. Where is the characterisation? The trains need to go back on the helmets. It's so integral to the show. My wife had never seen Starlight before and found it really hard to follow because of lack of variety in the engines. She said they looked like knock off Power Rangers, and I tend to agree. Don't even get me started on the costumes for Electra and his team. It was hard to tell who was who, lacked any of the spectacle of the original Electra and those inflatable lightening bolts looked like they had come from some sort of blow up marital aid!

- The set is fine for the space available, but oh my goodness do I miss the bridge. It just felt so empty without it and so much of the dynamism of the original staging is lost without it. This along with the gender swap for Greaseball were the biggest misses for me. They had such a great opportunity to make the set something really, really special again with a blank canvas. For me it felt like it was designed to be very temporary and easily moved and dismantled. It doesn't show much faith in the longevity of the current production.

All in all a solid three out of five for me. I still enjoyed it, but it's a totally different show. So many elements have been adapted, removed or added that it is so far detached from the original. Some of the those changes are great, others much less so.

My kids will love it and I can't wait to introduce them to 'their' verison of Starlight Expresss. I just wish they hadn't been so heavy handed in the changes from the original. I'll definitely be going back to see it again, but I'm also planning to go to Bochum to see something much more faithful to the original...a show about mad national trains and not shiny cartoon robots!

ALW is notorious for throwing a tantrum when he doesn't get his way and there's no way that the original London production wasn't what he wanted. If he wanted a small show he wouldn't have booked the Apollo Victoria or hired John Napier to design it.

Cast great. Production great. Story and songs - WHAT was ALW on when he wrote this?

'freight is great'. I'll leave it at that.

There was not an ounce of me that felt emotionally invested.

Vocals are brilliant especially Rusty and Momma. Great for kids but I would pick something like Next To Normal that I can really get my teeth into over this any day.