The Race Is Back On........

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 6:25pm

A new multi media production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's smash hit musical 'Starlight Express' is to hit the tracks for a major 14 month UK tour next spring!
Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton and Wimbledon are already signed with Wimbledon being the first station stop!!! Opening May 10th.
Updated On: 11/21/11 at 06:25 PM

[Justin D]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 6:46pm

it's the only ALW show I know nothing about and really didnt care to when it was running. Maybe one day I will look into it.

[Musical-Matt]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 6:53pm

right so this is going to be a kenwright so the set will be cheap the 3d races will be back in and the show will be done with heeleys and not sktaes? i mean this will be a budget cut back version wont it? or am i mistaking kenwright LTD for another production company! suppose we can be thankful that this isnt UK Productions doing this

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 2:39am

Musical-Matt stealing my jokes again

In all honesty though, I'm excited.

[philitalia]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 2:52am

"A new multi-media production" ... so I suppose there'll projections in 3D ... pppfffff ... hate 3D in theatres, don't see the point

Absolutely loved the 2 Westend productions. I suppose it's my guilty pleasure

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 2:54am

I love Starlight Express! If it's like the last US tour with the 3D races and the scaled back set I didn't think it was that bad, but it was my first time seeing the show so I didn't realize how much I was missing until after when I saw pictures of the UK and Broadway sets on-line.

I like the show better with the new version of "Only You" instead of "Next Time We Fall in Love." I wonder which they will use for this tour? It would be nice to get an updated recording.

[philitalia]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 3:04am

There are many productions.
There's one that toured the US with 3D projections and apparantly it also includes music written by David Yazbek apparantly (well, so I've read).

Is that the one you saw ?
How's that material written by Yazbek ?
Updated On: 11/16/11 at 03:04 AM

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 3:13am

Well Andrew hated it and had it removed! I'm surprised he let someone else go near one of his scores in the first place!

[philitalia]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 3:19am

I haven't heard any of the music Yazbek for Starlight Express, but he's quite a good composer. Would love to hear that music.

I agree with you and also I don't understand why ALW allowed this.
He's taken quite a few "odd" decisions over the last few years (working with Kenwright springs to mind).

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 7:53pm

I'm pretty sure Yazbek only wrote new lyrics not music. And it was mostly just for updated versions of "A Lotta Locomotion" with was then called "A Whole Lotta Locomotion" and "The Rap" which was called "It's Race Time." I'm not 100% sure that Yazbeck wrote the new lyrics for "Locomotion."

Both are on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdn5Qj8LXy0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9whdKasGK8

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 8:37pm

Awful, horrid show

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 2:31am

According to "the internet" Yazbeck wrote both music and lyrics.

[philitalia]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 3:09am

That's what I read, but it could be wrong. I haven't seen that version

[philitalia]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 3:44am

Just checked out those clips. Seems horrible - which is contrary to my memories of the show

[exedore]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 1:00pm

I'd expect the old Locomotion to be in the tour but the new (and horrid) Rap, which is the current setup in the German production.

With luck they're also restoring Girls Rolling Stock.

(In case you couldn't tell, I fecking love this show.)

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 1:33pm

Here's the article from Playbill. According to them Yazbek only wrote lyrics.

David Yazbek, the pop composer-lyricist who was Tony Award-nominated for his score to The Full Monty, is penning new lyrics for a new national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express.

Yazbek and Lloyd Webber are reconceiving some of the songs and the script, Troika cproducer Randy Buck told Playbill On-Line Dec. 30.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/77095-David-Yazbek-Working-With-Lloyd-Webber-on-Starlight-Express-Rewrite

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 1:44pm

When this opened back in the good old days it was an amazing, mind blowing theatrical experience. I saw it 3 days after it opened and it was like going to a big rock concert, the whole of Victoria was abuzz.
Remember, it was pre a lot of what the theatre can achieve today and was simply, well, mind blowing. The shear size of it and that it was all around you, above, to the side and behind made it the long running hit it became. In frequent visits back to it over the years saw very little magic disappear, it was only in its last 3 or 4 years it kind of went off the tracks. Its production team seamed to lose interest as the other bigger and brighter shows came along. About 2 years before it closed I was in a position where I would see it 3 or 4 times a week for 9 months!!!
To this day, I get nervous getting on a train.
The tour a few years back got very mixed reactions from audiences and critics alike.
I am really really surprised it's being brought back today with a look around at the other stuff that the provinces are getting. As a poster above put it perfectly, its a Kenwright production...
...say no more!








Updated On: 11/17/11 at 01:44 PM

[Jonwo]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 1:55pm

I saw the original production twice and liked it, I dread to think how much it would cost to produce now! Would love to see the Bochum production as the theatre was built especially for it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 4:15pm

Whole Lotta Locomotion and It's Race Time both look and sound DREADFUL. I'm so glad I skipped that tour. I saw the first US national tour in 1989 and I remember it being thrilling and something totally new and different. When I finally saw the London production in 1999, it was a real letdown. The set was getting creaky and the cast just went through the motions. Even the audience talked through the entire show except when it was time to clap along with a song. It was clear the show had been abandoned by everyone involved except the accountants.

As thin and cheesey as the show is, like Cats, it was innovative and its use of technology and design was mind-blowing. I was actually surprised it never really took hold on Broadway, though the tour did very well (with several subsequent tours) and the Vegas production also had a lengthy run.

What people generally forget is that during the height of his career, Lloyd Webber was collaborating with artists that were all pushing boundaries and exploring new ideas in musical theatre. After Phantom of the Opera, his creative well ran dry and his productions were more or less variations on his more successful themes. I loved Sunset Boulevard, but it wasn't really that ground-breaking. And I think Aspects of Love is his best and most mature score, but the original production was trying to live up to the spectacle of his recent hits, though spectacle simply wasn't warranted in the script or the score.

[West_London]

Posted: 11/18/11 at 4:30am

!

Updated On: 11/18/11 at 04:30 AM

[West_London]

Posted: 11/18/11 at 4:30am

On a side note...he 'reworked' the tune to "A Whole Lotta Locomotion' to become 'The Beauty Underneath' in Love Never Dies.
Updated On: 11/18/11 at 04:30 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 11/23/11 at 7:25am

'Starlight Express' chugs back on stage.
One of the West End's longest running musicals – the roller-skating extravaganza about toy trains coming to life – is making a comeback for a whistestop UK tour in 2012.

It turns out there is a light at the end of the tunnel, at least where old musicals are concerned. 'Starlight Express' will return next spring for a major UK tour.

The musical, which originally ran for 18 years after its premiere in 1984 at the Victoria Apollo Theatre, will open at the New Wimbledon Theatre in May, where it will run for 12 performances over nine days. No further tour dates have been confirmed as yet but major cities can expect a call.

Last seen in the UK in 2008, when a previous national and international tour bowed out in Plymouth after four years, 'Starlight Express' follows a child's dream in which his toy trains – including Rusty, Poppa and Greaseball – come to life. Billed as a "futuristic tale about love and hope in the face of adversity", the Cinderella-style story is most famous for being performed by actors in roller-skates.

Andrew Lloyd Webber reputedly wrote the musical for his two children as a celebration of the era of steam trains, having originally tried to secure the rights to adapt stories from Wiblert Awdry's Railway Series, including the stories of Thomas the Tank Engine.

The new tour will be produced by Bill Kenwright Ltd in agreement with Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group. The creative team and cast has not yet been announced.

The original production, directed by Trevor Nunn with choreography by Arlene Philips, remains the seventh longest running West End show, racking up 7,406 performances.
It closed in 2002 with total audience figures of over 8 million and box office takings in excess of £140m.
One woman saw the production 800 times over 15 years at an estimated cost of £30,000.

[AnythingGoes2]

Posted: 11/24/11 at 6:24am

Bill Kenwright is producing. We'll be lucky if the show has rollerskates...

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 11/28/11 at 4:29pm

This seems to be the production artwork they're using for now. The costumes do look pretty minimal.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 11/28/11 at 4:36pm

It looks like S Club 7 on Roller Skates.