Background to the original London production

Background to the original London production

1974 to 1981: Pre-Starlight projects

According to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Starlight Express has its roots in three abandoned projects: an animated TV series based on Thomas the Tank Engine, a novelty pop single, and an animated film based on Cinderella.

Thomas the Tank Engine

In 1974, Lloyd Webber approached author Reverend W. Awdry about adapting Awdry’s Thomas the Tank Engine stories as an animated TV series.[2] He later recalled that ‘writing music for something as simple and heartwarming as Thomas would be a joyous antidote to the heavy waters of Evita’, the musical he was working on at the time.

Following the meeting, Lloyd Webber starting composing, with actor and children’s TV writer Peter Reeves contributing lyrics. They pitched their material to Granada TV, who commissioned a pilot episode, which was animated by Brian Cosgrove (later of Cosgrove-Hall Films fame). The episode was completed in early 1976, but Grenada 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. Another contributing factor was that Awdry did not give Webber much creative flexability.

Brian Cosgrove animating the pilot

The Thomas stories eventually did get adapted to television by Britt Allcroft in 1984 (albeit with actual model trains and wooden figures instead of traditional animation, before switching to full CGI in 2009, before the reboot Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go went to 2D animation), and has gone on to become one of the longest-running children's television series, still premiering new episodes and annual feature-length specials to this day.

Engine of Love

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', which was released in 1977. The song failed to chart, but 'Engine of Love' would go on to feature in some productions of Starlight Express.

Cinderella

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 the idea of telling a story with trains.

In early 1981, Lloyd Webber asked lyricist Richard Stilgoe to help ‘doctor’ the opening number of Cats, which was in rehearsal and due to open in the West End that May. Stilgoe recalls that ‘once Cats was put out for the night, Andrew showed me the Cinderella story, and talked to me of trains.’

1982: Assembling a creative team

Richard Stilgoe

In 1982, Lloyd Webber took his then 4-year-old son, Nicholas, to the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. Lloyd Webber recalls that ‘a steam railway runs there, and I'll never forget [Nicholas’s] face when it passed. Because of his reaction, I decided to dig out the sketches of the score that I had written many years ago.’

Trevor Nunn

On 10 July 1982, Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe presented early material for Starlight Express at Lloyd Webber’s Sydmonton Festival. A cast of Elaine Paige, Paul Nicholas and Bonnie Langford performed numbers including the title song, Only He and a country and western spoof “Stand by Your Engine”.

At this stage, Lloyd Webber intended Starlight Express to be a concert for schools, in the style of Lloyd Webber’s breakthrough musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The plan was to form a choir from children at schools across the City of London, who would perform a concert to open the new Barbican Centre.

However, the direction of Starlight Express took a turn when he spoke to the director, Trevor Nunn, who was in the audience that day.

Nunn felt that the current version was too ‘twee’[6]. He argued that, if Starlight Express was to be a show for children, then it must ‘offer something [that children have] never experienced or seen anything like before.' To Nunn, this meant more competition, a current pop score and, ‘above all that it could be a staged 'event', with more ‘spectacle and theatre magic’, rather than a traditional musical theatre performance.

Nunn joined the creative team and helped Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe and Nunn develop the story to include the idea of trains and coaches racing.

Arlene Phillips

With Trevor Nunn onboard, Andrew Lloyd Webber telephoned Arlene Phillips to ask if she would be interested in choreographing Starlight Express.

Phillips recalls that she had only worn roller stakes twice before: once as a child, then in 1979 in Hollywood, when she was choreographed a sequence on skates for a film. She was seven months pregnant at the time and had ‘been hastily taught to skate’ herself.

1983: Workshop

Arlene Philips, Mark Davis, and Trevor Nunn

In 1983 the first act of the ‘now-embryonic’ Starlight Express was workshopped over 6 weeks by director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Arlene Phillips. The venue was the Notre Dame Hall, near Leicester Square (since rebuilt and reopened as the Leicester Square Theatre). The cast was made up of traditional musical theatre performers and street dancers with little or no theatre experience. The role of Pearl was played by the comedienne Tracey Ullman and Electra by the pop star Zaine Griff.

The first 2 weeks of the workshop were a training camp. The musical theatre actors were taught to skate and the skaters were given ‘the shortest dance training in history’.

The workshop converted Lloyd Webber to Trevor’s vision of creating a show that ‘could reach audiences for whom theatre was a no-go zone; not just the Joseph children’s audience but street kids who might relate to Starlight and then graze on more grown-up fodder.’

Based on workshop’s success, Starlight Express went into full-scale production with an opening date of March 1984.

Early material

Characters

There are two characters known to date that did not make it past the workshop:

• Zero the freezer truck, who introduced himself in an Schwarzenegger-esque accent with abysmal puns during Freight, seemed to be a pre cursor to the later characters of Volta and Flat-Top. The actor of Zero, Mark Davis, would also portrayed Espresso for Heat One, it is unclear if he remains as Espresso or Zero for the remainder of the performance.

• A mail van is also introduced in the Freight lineup, (possibly called Strike). He races with Hashamoto in Heat One. The actor doubles up to play Weltschaft.

• Bi-Decker the double decker coach, a friendly and shy coach who states she is blind without her glasses. She was played by Nancy Wood, who would go on to originate Buffy. According to the actress the coach wore big glasses and when it came to racing with Espresso he would remove her glasses, grandly sing "You are beautiful!", and then they would proceed into an aria, while racing together at the same time. Wood was relieved that changes were made.

• The Runaway Train was made up of an engine and coach team. However, due to the couple being announced by their team name, neither engine or coach were given respective names. The engine was a precursor to Turnov and played by Bobby Collins. Though the type of coach was never introduced, based on the original song by Vernon Dalhart titled "The Runaway Train", a parlour car is mentioned. This possibly suggesting the coach's potential role as part of the train. She was played by Eleanor Bertram who favoured more high energy, punchy, and sharp movements.

Other minor name changes also occurred; Smuts changed to Rusty, and Elton changed to Electra.

Songs

Songs that never made it past the workshop include the coupling songs of the heat one and two engines:

• Greaseball couples Dinah to the tune of Pearl Twirl.
• Following on from Pearl's He Whistled At Me, Hashamoto cuts through Rusty and Pearl fittingly as she pairs with Electra. He then begins a highly controversial who'll race with me song for Heat One, thick with questionable vocals, choreography, and themes, referencing seppuku at the end of his song (a form of ritualistic suicide, originally by samurai). The mail van couples up with him.
• After rejecting Ashley who asks for a light, Espresso sings an aria when coupling up with Bi-Decker. As they proceed to sing through heat one, it is unclear by the end if Espresso is so in love the pair crash, they split up by the end of the race, or if they disappear off together before the final turn singing together. Considering Bi-Decker is lacking her previously mentioned much needed glasses, the former is unfortunately more likely.
• Weltschaft sings a short song before Heat Two, sharing similarly questionable themes and choreography to Hashamoto's earlier song. The song contains nazi salutes and the phrase "Deutschland over all". He is then coupled by CB.

Other songs such as Be A Pump, an entirely new song from the crashed trio post race, currently dubbed as Three Heads, were never used after the Workshop.

Varying versions of Belle the Sleeping Car reprises, among extra verses to currently existing songs also never made it to opening night.

Call Me Rusty - Ray Shell, Workshop 1983

Wide Smile - Michael Staniforth Workshop 1983