Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a 1984 musical, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Richard Stilgoe.[1] It tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, who races in a championship against modern engines in the hope of impressing a first-class observation car, Pearl. Famously, the actors perform on roller skates.[2][3]
For other uses, see Starlight Express (disambiguation).Starlight Express
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Alastair Lloyd Webber (additional music)
Richard Stilgoe
Lauren Aquilina (additional lyrics) Don Black (additional lyrics)
Nick Coler (additional lyrics)
David Yazbek (additional lyrics)
1984 West End
1987 Broadway
1987 Australasia Tour
1988 Bochum
1989 US Tour
1993 Las Vegas
1997 Mexico City
2003 2nd US Tour
2004 UK Tour
2009 New Zealand Tour
2012 2nd UK Tour
2013 Asia Tour
2013 Johannesburg
2013 Tuacahn
2017 UK Workshop
2024 London revival
Running for 7,409 performances in London, Starlight Express is the ninth-longest-running West End show. It is the most successful musical in Germany, where it has been performed in a purpose-built theatre since 1988, holding the Guinness World Record for most visitors to a musical in a single theatre.[4]
Background[edit]
Starlight Express has its roots in three abandoned projects: an animated TV series based on The Railway Series (the book series that introduced Thomas the Tank Engine), a novelty pop single, and an animated film based on Cinderella.[5]
In 1974, Lloyd Webber approached author Reverend W. Awdry about adapting Awdry's Thomas the Tank Engine stories as an animated TV series. Following the meeting, Lloyd Webber started composing, with actor and children's TV writer Peter Reeves contributing lyrics, alongside artist Brian Cosgrove animating for it. They pitched their material to Granada TV, who commissioned a pilot episode. The episode was completed in early 1976, but Granada ultimately decided not to produce a full series as they feared that Awdry's stories were not then popular enough outside the UK to justify investing the time and money needed to make the series[6] (ironically, the Thomas & Friends series later premiered seven months after Starlight Express and became highly successful).
After withdrawing from the project, Lloyd Webber heard a recording of an American soul singer, Earl Jordan, who could sing three notes at once in the style of a steam whistle. Lloyd Webber and Peter Reeves wrote a novelty pop song for Jordan called "Engine of Love," released in 1977.[7] The song failed to chart, but "Engine of Love" went on to feature in some productions of Starlight Express and the melody was also later used for "He'll Whistle At Me".
Around the same time as writing "Engine of Love", an American TV station invited Lloyd Webber to compose songs for an animated film of Cinderella. In this version of the story, the Prince would hold a competition to decide which Engine would pull the royal train across the United States of America. Cinderella would be a steam engine, and the ugly sisters would be a diesel engine and an electric engine. The project went into development hell, but Lloyd Webber remained interested in telling a story with trains. [8]
Starlight Express proper began in early 1981. Lloyd Webber asked lyricist Richard Stilgoe to help him revive the idea as a concert for schools, in the style of Lloyd Webber's breakthrough musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe presented two songs the following summer at the Sydmonton Festival, Lloyd Webber's private event for showcasing new work. The director Trevor Nunn watched the performance and offered to help develop the material from something "twee" [9] to something with more "spectacle and theatre magic".[10]
Together, Lloyd Webber, Stilgoe and Nunn developed the story to include the idea of trains and coaches racing. The choreographer Arlene Phillips was brought on board along with the designer John Napier, who suggested staging the show on roller skates.[11]
In 1983, the first act of Starlight Express was workshopped by Nunn and Phillips with a cast that included the comedian Tracey Ullman. Based on the workshop's success, Starlight Express began full-scale production, opening in the West End in March 1984.
Voices only
Engines
Coaches
National champions
These minor characters have frequently been renamed and substituted throughout various productions.
(Starlight Express on Ice also included Canuck, the Canadian Engine and Cesar, the Mexican Engine. Expreso Astral had Carioca, the Brazilian Engine; El Pibe, the Argentinian Engine; and Conan, the French Orient Express Engine.)
Freight trucks
Electra's entourage of components
Ensemble
The musical numbers in Starlight Express have changed many times since the first production opened in 1984. Each new production is "re-invented ... rewritten, rearranged, restaged and brought up to date ... rather than just [being] a copy of the original".[12] This is because the show was envisaged as an introduction to live theatre for young audiences, particularly audiences "for whom theatre was a no-go zone".[13] The score is grounded in popular music, which changes with each generation. Therefore, as Lloyd Webber has said, "Starlight Express by its nature has to change".[14]
Later productions have used additional songs with lyrics by Don Black, David Yazbek, Nick Coler and Lauren Aquilina, and with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber's son, Alastair.
This list shows the musical numbers in the original West End production, which have been added or removed over the years.
The New Starlight Express (1992)
† denotes songs no longer used in any "Starlight Express" production.
Additional songs
These songs have been added to various incarnations of the show: