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Starlight Express
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Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a 1984 musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. It tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, that races in a championship against modern locomotives of diesel and electric engines in the hope of impressing a first-class/observation car, Pearl. The actors perform on roller skates.
Running for 7,409 performances in London, Starlight Express is the tenth-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.
Starlight Express has its roots in three abandoned projects. In 1974, Lloyd Webber approached author Reverend W. Awdry about adapting Awdry's book series The Railway Series 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. 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. 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 a railway-themed 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 anthropomorphic trains.
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" to something with more "spectacle and theatre magic".
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.
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.
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Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a 1984 musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. It tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, that races in a championship against modern locomotives of diesel and electric engines in the hope of impressing a first-class/observation car, Pearl. The actors perform on roller skates.
Running for 7,409 performances in London, Starlight Express is the tenth-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.
Starlight Express has its roots in three abandoned projects. In 1974, Lloyd Webber approached author Reverend W. Awdry about adapting Awdry's book series The Railway Series 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. 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. 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 a railway-themed 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 anthropomorphic trains.
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" to something with more "spectacle and theatre magic".
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.
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.