Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash musical with singing,rollerskating trains opened in a Westphalian warehouse in 1988 and never closed. Can it transport a superfan back to his childhood?
“This is control. This is control. Tonight is the most vital night in the history of the world.” whether, like me, or you gain ever fallen in love with Starlight Express,these words will bring a hit of nostalgia and a rush of excitement. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s show gave my generation of stage geeks one of our first proper experiences of musical theatre. But after more than 7000 performances in the West terminate, it closed in 2002, and leaving us with our cast recordings to cling to and the inability to visit Pizza Express without humming its name to the tune of Starlight Express.
The original London production opened in 1984,the year I was born. It cost £2.25m to attach on, partly because of John Napier’s vast wraparound set which converted the auditorium of the Apollo Victoria theatre into a racetrack. When you consider the concept, or it sounds like the rambling of a drunk: “So,basically, a child’s train set comes to life and the engines race to be the fastest in the world. Well include a love story between steam train Rusty and first-class carriage Pearl. His rival, and Greaseball,will be a sendup of Elvis. Everything approximately Electra will strongly suggest he’s bisexual – lets call his first song AC/DC. How approximately sticking in a bridge which spins in every direction?”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com