Written for his children and performed on roller skates, Starlight Express is Andrew Lloyd Webber's most unique musical. Joanna Hunkin caught up with the key players as its stadium sized incarnation rolls into town
As a 12-year-old, sitting in London's Apollo Theatre where Starlight Express played for 19 years, I was mesmerised by the sparkling, spandex-clad spectacular of "the fastest show on Earth".
I had never heard of the musical before - its elaborate staging, which circled the entire theatre, meant it was particularly
difficult to tour - and I didn't even know the show was performed on rollerskates until the first trains came out.
It was all my 12-year-old dreams come true. Roller skates. Holographic leggings. Towering bouffants of multi-coloured hair. Heaven.
As an adult, Starlight Express is a rather large, cheesy lump to swallow. It's perhaps the only musical to make Cats seem remotely sane. But Starlight Express has never been about grown-ups.
Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the show in 1984 for his son Nicholas, inspired by The Little Engine That Could and Thomas the Tank Engine stories. He had originally toyed with the idea of making it a television series, but later realised it could work as a musical - on skates.
Starlight Express is unique for various reasons. Performed entirely on roller skates, it requires special staging and ramps, which have made touring near-impossible. For years, it was relegated to specially adapted theatres - the Apollo Theatre in London, Broadway's Gershwin Theatre and Germany's Starlighthalle in Bochum.
But on a visit to Edinburgh in 2004, New Zealand producer Stewart McPherson saw the show was on tour. He called Lloyd Webber's company, The Really Useful Group, to find out more.
"I called them up and said 'you've figured out how to tour it!' and they said, 'well, sort of ...'
"It was a far more limited form because they were playing into conventional theatres and really only able to use the space out over an orchestra pit. It was quite limited in terms of interaction with the audience."
McPherson returned to New Zealand and began thinking about how a touring production could work - without removing the audience from the action.
One of the highlights of the original production was the staging, which saw the skaters physically race around the edge of the theatre on a specially built track during race scenes.
Six months later McPherson called the company again and asked: "What about indoor arenas?"
They considered his suggestion and agreed he could be on to something.
Together, they devised a touring version of the show, featuring a custom-built stage that extends into the audience, with floor seating arranged around it, and three large, drop-down screens, which show pre-recorded videos of the race scenes.
Four years on, McPherson, his wife Trisha and co-producer Patrick Connell, finally unveiled their version of Starlight Express in Wellington last week - a production, which McPherson says is now considered "the definitive indoor arena production of Starlight Express," drawing interest from several territories and likely to tour internationally next year.
It is a coup for both McPherson and the cast - most of whom will go on to tour with the production, and who have spent the 12 weeks learning to sing, dance and act - on roller skates.
Aucklander Rebecca Wright, who plays Pearl the Observation Carriage, says the training and rehearsal regime has been the most intense of any show she has worked on.
"Some of us couldn't even stand up on roller skates," she laughs, recalling the past three months. "It's so, so much more difficult [than a standard show]. Everything takes so much more time to learn. The dancing, obviously being on wheels, is much more difficult.
"There were a few spills, a couple of big falls. Actually most people have done pretty well to survive, to be honest."
New Zealander Matthew Cutts is an old hand at the show, reprising the role of Greaseball the Diesel Engine, one of several roles he has played in both the British and German productions.
After first joining the London production in 1992, Cutts says he still loves the challenge of the show. While the skating becomes second nature, the show itself requires more effort and energy than other musicals.
"You can never become complacent. On other shows, you're pretty much responsible for yourself, whereas in a show like this, if I was to turn up to work and not be 100 per cent committed, I'm a danger to other people. You just can't afford to not be on your game in this show."
That said, he says it is equally important to have no fear when performing the fast-paced show. When he arrived on set, he explained to the young cast members that if they were scared of falling over, they were actually more likely to fall over.
Besides, he laughs, there's nothing embarrassing about falling over.
"I think that the audience actually leave feeling a little disappointed if they don't see someone fall over."
Cutts left New Zealand as a teenager and got his first role in the London production of Starlight without really knowing what the show was about.
"I went along to the audition and I got the job but I hadn't seen the show before and I didn't know a lot of the music. The first time I saw the show - after I'd been offered the job - I was petrified! I really had my work cut out for me."
One of the people who helped manage that workload was musical supervisor Phil Edwards. The original musical director from the show's 1984 premiere, Edwards now travels the world working with new casts and teaching them the show's musical repertoire.
He is the first port of call in training Starlighters - following three weeks of skate school - instilling the music deeply into the performers' heads so they don't forget it when they're back on skates.
Unlike most Lloyd Webber musicals, Starlight Express has never had a definitive hit single or anthem and most people are unfamiliar with the score. Which is actually a key advantage in training up new talent, says Edwards.
"They've got no preconceptions of how it goes. If they were singing Memories from Cats or Don't Cry For Me Argentina, then there are so many different recordings about, they've probably got a version stuck in their heads. They come to [Starlight] fresh and it actually helps."
And unlike Cats, Evita or any other Lloyd Webber shows, Starlight Express is a pop-based musical and as such, has a constantly evolving score.
"The music is constantly being updated by Andrew to keep in line with modern styles and tastes," says Edwards.
"Audiences, as you go through each decade, get used to a certain sound of pop music on the radio. Certain production values. If we'd stayed with the sound of 1984, the show would sound very dated now.
"The new songs are essentially saying exactly the same thing - the same narrative, the same ideas and character development as the old ones. They just need updating. Andrew has his finger on the pulse of contemporary music and wanted to give the show a more modern feel."
In fact, the story you see today is vastly different from the original debuted in 1984. Characters have been culled, costumes have been redesigned (the cheeky outfits on show in the New Zealand production were created for the Las Vegas show and reveal rather a lot more skin than the original designs) and stunt skaters added.
It's one of the reasons McPherson was so keen to bring the show to New Zealand.
"I'd seen it originally, way back at the London venue, and had been impressed at the time. I always felt that it was different from most of the other musicals that Andrew has written. It's always had a much more whimsical element to it and he's been far less precious about it.
"Most of the shows are clearly designed and they remain constantly the same. Whereas he allowed the creative team to let this evolve ... It's one of those organic things that continues to evolve and keep itself up to date."
But more than anything, McPherson enjoyed the show's sense of humour and fun.
"We can get a bit serious about theatre and entertainment. This is light relief but spectacular light relief. There is a lot of humour. Some people get it and some people don't."
Cutts, for his two cents worth, thinks New Zealand audiences have been quick to respond to the show, especially as many don't know what to expect.
"This musical is probably a bit of a shock to the system. Once we're 30 to 40 per cent of the way through the show, I think there's a realisation, 'oh, hang on, we're actually meant to enjoy this'. It takes a little while for people to realise this is actually fun."
