Maybe Starlight Express was the friends we made along the way

…or was it, as my friend Joz said, just ‘Cats, with trains’?

This picture is everything because my favourite kind of train is when all the different kinds of train join together to make one long MEGATRAIN. Picture: Pamela Raith

[Disclaimer, if you aren’t into musicals, don’t let that put you off reading this. Starlight Express is not simply a musical. It is a lifestyle. It is for everyone who needs it.]

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I’ve had Starlight Express filed away in my brain since childhood as one of the worst musicals I’ve ever seen. Doing my maths, it must have been the very late 90s when I saw it, making me under ten years old, and even at that tender age, I remember thinking the music was sooo trash that even watching the actors all roller skating around couldn’t make it any better.

It contributes heavily to my long-held personal narrative of Andrew Lloyd Webber being a Not Very Good composer, and Richard Stilgoe being an Even Worse Lyricist (I know neither of these things are empirically true but I believe them). Now, revisiting Starlight Express in my old age, with both the benefit of maturity and an even deeper disdain for ALW, I’ve realised that these factors combined can lead to a work of comic genius.

It turns out two wrongs DO make a right. 

Because the new London production of Starlight Express at Wembley’s ridiculously huge Troubadour Theatre is one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life. I’ve never had a theatre experience like it and I doubt I ever will again. Now, how much of this had to do with the company I was with? How much of it was that we were sitting on the back row giggling like naughty children before it had even started? How much of it was the fact it was in previews and we had bought really cheap tickets ages ago so it felt like it was basically free? Who can say? We can never measure.

Whatever the reason, what I do know is that by the interval, we were positively giddy, and by the end, we were discussing which certifiably nuts lyrics we should get printed on t-shirts. 

Starlight Express, Starlight Express, are you good? Yes, or no?

The great thing about writing this newsletter and it being only mine and not attached to any publication is that I don’t have to do any of the usual necessaries when it comes to reviewing things. This is also not a review, so I’m not obligated to talk about the pacing or pay too much attention to the merits of the plot or “know” what’s “going on” at any given “time”. I think any review that tries to actually properly seriously criticise Starlight Express is missing the point. I’ll talk more on what this ellusive point is later.

But first, a quick run-down for newcomers and non-musical theatre girlies (non-gender specific) on what this musical is:

Imagine you’re flying from London to Edinburgh because it’s cheaper than getting the train. You don’t love flying so you take two (read: three) travel sickness pills and you’ve conked out before the back wheels have left the tarmac. Now you’re floating through the air, dreaming about all the people below wasting money on that silly train that takes ages and just chugs along, I mean trains don’t even choo choo or woo woo anymore. Do kids nowadays even know that trains used to woo woo?

Woo woo. Woo woo. Nobody can do it like a steam train. Woo woo. Woo woo. Everybody’s waiting for their dream train…

It’s time for the Big Train Race! You know the one, that big race that the trains do? To determine which train is the very best train? Or to determine which train gets £250k and to perform for the king? (I’m unclear on what the prize is.) All your favourite classic trains are here — the cool train, the mum train, the jock train, the Ariana Grande train, the sad train — all helpfully introducing themselves one by one in a manner that seems strangely familiar if you’ve ever seen any of ALW’s other musicals. (“Cats, with trains”, as

Joz Norris

concisely put it.)

Is any of this making sense? I hope not, because nothing really made sense to me for the entire two and a half hours. As soon as I thought I was getting to grips with the romance storyline — of course there’s a romance storyline — HONK HONK, IT’S TIME FOR THE NEXT RACE. Great, brilliant, fantastic, this is now a sports musical and I’ve forgotten all about the love story and I just want to see them skating uphill! 

Anyway, Rusty (sad train) needs to prove that steam trains are still relevant to Gen Z and — this isn’t really a spoiler because everyone knows how an underdog musical turns out — he does manage to prove that steam trains are still relevant. I presume in the same sort of way that listening to music on vinyl is relevant to millennials (as in: you can do it and, yes technically it’s better, but it’ll cost you five times as much as it should/used to and no matter how hard you scour, you can never find the steam train you really want but somehow always find at least five versions of the same Cliff Richard…steam train.)

I hope that helped.

And I hope it demonstrated why we were loving every camp second of it, whether or not we had any idea what was happening, and why we have since been exchanging our favourite lyrics in the group chat and why at least two of us have now ordered hats bearing the words “Rusty has had a small accident”.

Really kind of them to add a hot non-binary train with a mullet that all five of us could fancy. Picture: Pamela Raith

Right then, so is Starlight Express good? I’m not sure how you could deduce anything other than a resounding “I THINK SO” accompanied by a fist pump from everything I’ve just told you. But I have made it out to be totally ridiculous and that’s not entirely fair, especially given the fact that everyone in it is excellent. Like, truly brilliant performances all round, backwards and in roller skates. Not to mention the fact that what seems to be a large part of this lead cast are making their professional stage debuts, all energetic, fresh and pitch perfect (usually the bare minimum for a musical but here they’re doing it while skating).

So, while it is both totally ridiculous and very well staged, the question of whether Starlight Express is a good musical or not isn’t really the one we should be asking, or one that’s even possible to answer. No, the real question is: What is Starlight Express?

What is a Starlight Express?

Is it an imaginary space train?
Is it the drive to succeed?
Is it the concept of dreaming?
Is it Jesus?

The answer to all of the above is: Yes.

Starlight Express is the name of the musical but it isn’t a character in the show but it is referenced all the way through but no one says what it is but Rusty’s life seems to depend on it but it also arrives when you’re falling asleep but it’s been inside you all along.

I’m sort of happy to say it’s Jesus, mainly because it fits into my theory that all of ALW’s musicals are really about Jesus (even the one with Joseph’s dreamcoat, and the solo musical about a woman whose name is literally just “the girl”, and the Phantom of the Opera sequel where the Phantom has got a job running a theme park in America. That last one’s obvious.) But that would be too easy and my theory falls apart with the slightest interrogation.

After the show, when we were filing out of our seats, we were discussing this very question. A woman in the row in front overheard and told us we might be thinking about it too much.

And do you know what? That’s the true meaning of all of it. There is no meaning to Starlight Express. There is no deeper message. There is only fun. There is only trains. And maybe, trains is the friends we made along the way.

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Thanks for joining me on this journey. Please, please, if you are in London or can get there, see this show and report back. We’re planning a trip to Bochum, Germany where Starlight Express has been running non-stop in a gargantuan arena since the 1980s. Imagine that.

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Great things I’ve read this week:

I have replaced reading the news with reading Substack. So this is the best news I have read this week:

• My new Substack friend

  Liv Rowe
  wrote this great piece about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Netflix docuseries, which made by the same director as Cheer but with waaaaay less of a critical eye:

06. Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: the epitome of girlhood or just a shiny facade?

• Kareem Rahma
  of Subway Takes fame is writing about keeping passing greetings short. I like. It’s the same energy as seeing someone you know on the train and smiling but not removing your headphones. Everyone appreciates it.

I hate the Long Hello

• While I’ve mentioned him in this newsletter, I also enjoyed

  Joz Norris
  ’s Fruit Salad Therapy Tape last week, which is about TV comedy in the UK, cautious commissioners and the success of Ghosts (my, and everyone’s, fave).

  Tape 144: Ghosts, Collectives & High Concepts

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More from me:

• Want to get to know me? This is what I like :)

• Need life advice? I get all of my life hacks from movies!

• Feeling a certain way? Find the song to fit your mood.

• Want to know what I wish for of a relationship? In the form of a film review.