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Why is STARLIGHT EXPRESS closing in London? | The real reason the musical revival will end its run
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Attention theater goers, this is the final boarding call, I repeat, the final boarding call for the London production of Starlight Express. If you wish to see this production, please book tickets now or forever hold your peace. Wait, I seem to have slipped into a wedding. Hold on. The train musical is about to leave the station. And as they say in the business, choo choo. And as I say in the business, oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello to those of you listening to this theatrical news recap on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a theatre critic and content creator here on the Internet. And today we are going to be talking about the London production of Starlight Express, which has just surprised us all with an announcement that it is going to end its limited run in London a little later this year. We are going to be talking about whether or not this was anticipated and the many, many reasons behind it, as well as the simultaneously announced world tour. Of course, closing announcements are very common in the theatre industry. Shows come and they go. The majority of them are strictly temporary. But Starlight Express is not like the majority of shows, and by extension, a lot of the details around this particular announcement and the circumstances of its upcoming closure are quite specific to it as a musical. So we're going to talk through exactly why this is and as well as sharing a lot of facts about this news and the theatre that Starlight Express is playing in in Wembley and how that is very specifically linked to the end of its run. I'll be sharing with you my thoughts about the overall success of this revival, whether it perhaps lived up to initial expectations, and I would love to hear your thoughts about that in the comments section down below as well. If you got to see it on stage. If you're a Starlight Express fan, do you think that we can call this London revival of Starlight Express a substantial success? Oh, I didn't even see that rhyme coming Starlight Express financial success much for us discuss today. And we're going to get right to it right after I remind you that if you enjoy listening to this theatrical news recap and would like to hear more about what's going on in the West End and on Broadway, make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. Share all your thoughts in the comments down below and get ready to hear about the closure of Starlight Express. Okie dokie. Let me pull up the press release where this was announced just before the weekend, which is often a move that they deploy in order to kind of minimize the amount of coverage. I think this actually went out on Friday after the end of the workday if I'm not mistaken. Or at least that's when the email arrived in my inbox. Yes, 7:35 on a Friday night from the show's PR representative. Starlight Express confirms final extension at Troubadour Wemberly Park Theatre. The multi award winning production plays performances until Sunday 3rd of May 2026. First ever world tour announced for 2027 Starlight Express has had some international reach before, but yeah, that would make sense that it's never really gone on world tour, if only for logistical reasons. If you don't know if you've stumbled onto this video and you don't know much about Starlight Express, it's a musical about competitive trains portrayed by human actors on roller skates and the trains race and compete and fall in love and sing about their different fuel sources. It's really very compelling stuff. The show first rolled onto stages in the mid-1980s, first in the West End, subsequently on Broadway. It was actually a long running West End success, but not quite as long running as the production that opened in 1988 in Boca, Germany, which is still running to this day and holds a Guinness World record. I believe not for the longest running musical of all time, that would be London's Les Miserables, but I believe for the number of visitors to the show in that theater which is actually named for the show, I think it's called the Starlight Express Theatre. I actually visited it just under a year ago. And we'll talk about what this world tour might look like as well as the differences between the original productions of Starlight Express and this most recent London revival. But a little more on the details now about its closure. Now it's done this as a final extension, so they have either extended it a little bit or perhaps it was already on sale through this date and they've just formalized the extension. This is in any case a better move than to have extended further and then have to cut the run short. So it's still being framed as a success. And for what it's worth, the show was always going to have to be some kind of a limited run. I dare say the plan was for it to run a little bit longer than what it will have achieved, but that is because of the theater in which it is currently playing being inherently temporary. The Troubadour Theatre in Wembley Park. We'll talk more about that in just a moment because it's actually quite interesting. In any case, the show, as I said, is going to run until Sunday, May 3, 2026, and it first arrived back in London in June of 2024. So that will have given it just under a two year run. Considering the longevity of the original production, it seems on the face of it, not to have made the same kind of a cultural impact. But there are a whole host of fair reasons as to why this is. And before I tell you about those, let's hear what producer Michael Harrison had to say. He said, I'm thrilled that Starlight Express will extend for the seventh time. Notice how that's. Again, it's the framing of that slight yay extension, not boohoo. Closing in the unique environment of Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre that it is, we're also thrilled that the success of this new production means we will embark on a world tour commencing in spring 2027, details of which we will announce shortly. Which does sort of cement the suggestion that it's not just the musical going on tour, it is this production. Because as he said here, the of this production means we are able to take it on tour. However, for now, this is your final call for boarding. He stole my joke. The man stole my joke. Two days before I made it to see the spectacular London revival in Wembley. Honestly, Mr. Harrison, what are we like? We're just a couple of Michaels who can't resist good train humour. Circling back then to the conversation about whether or not we would consider this revival to have been a success, there are some thoughts here on that. Starlight Express made a triumphant return to London when the new production opened to widespread critical acclaim. Fair enough. In June 2024, I say fair enough because I agree that that's what it was. Sometimes they call things critically acclaimed and I'm like, let's go read those reviews, shall we, and consider whether that's what that was. But no, it got surprisingly good Notices for a show that is sort of, you know, by the more esteemed minds within the theatre community. Occasionally scoffed at for, you know, being the silly singing train musical by being, you know, cats with Wheels. Since then it has gone on to win multiple awards including an Olivier Award and a record breaking 7 what's on stage awards. Now when they say an Olivier Award it's because they don't necess want to draw your attention to which one. I believe it was Gabriella Slade who won for costume design. The show did not win the Olivier Award for best revival of a musical. But in its defense it was an incredibly challenging year for revivals. It was up against fantastic revivals of Oliver and Fiddler on the Roof which I believe did go on to win that category. Very competitive year and of course not the only indication of quality. There have been plenty of great shows who didn't happen to win their Olivier or Tony category. The record breaking seven Watson Stage Awards wins does indicate that it was popular with audiences. And this is an even more interesting fact. Here it is London's longest running revival of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in 20 years. Largely by virtue of the fact that when these revivals are mounted, they don't tend to be open ended runs, they tend to be limited. Think of Evita, hugely successful but always strictly for the summer. The same thing with like Joseph going back to the Palladium then going out on tour or like Regent's park doing a revival of an Android Webber musical. They are very rarely. I guess maybe the most recent truly open ended run might have been Cats at the Palladium a very long time ago. I mean this says in 20 years. So the last one was 2006, which I don't think was. I don't imagine Michael Grande's Evita at the Adelphi ran longer than two years. I also don't know if Joseph with Lee Mead, that was later, that was like 07. In any case, even though Starlight has not run as long as the original production, two years is still a very decent amount of time for, for a revival. However, you do kind of have to assume that they were maybe hoping for a little bit longer. And the reason why I say that has everything to do with the theater where the show is playing. The Troubadour Theatre in Wembley Park. Let me tell you a little bit more about what I.
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What do you mean by that? So this particular theatre where Starlight Express is currently playing was always going to be a temporary venue. As with many, perhaps even all of the other Troubadour theatres that are currently being built or have recently been built around London, there is planning permission for a handful of other ones and they exist as temporary structures for a few years, like more than a couple years, less than a decade, usually generally on sites which are earmarked for some other purpose a little bit later down the line. And by later down the line, I mean years down the line. And this was not a secret and it was not a surprise. We knew this at the time when the venue first opened and housed little limited runs of things like Sleepless, the Sleepless in Seattle musical and I think Curious Incident went there for a bit, some Mischief shows went there for a bit more. Recently it was the home to Newsies for an extended period before the London return of Starlight Express. And it was a great home for Starlight because it's a very malleable space, as the producers of Newsies learned when they built that set design there that extended out into the audience. They could do even more with Starlight. They could build this track that wrapped around different sections of the audience and did these cool and different things. Admittedly not as expansive as the original production, nor the one still running in Bochum, but certainly. And after hearing for years that they were scouting for the right kind of a venue where the show could work, it made much more sense to do it there than try and once more convert a West End theater into a racetrack for singing trains. The show, of course, originally played at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, where Wicked is playing and is not going anywhere anytime soon. And the availability of the Troubadour Theatre in Wembley park for Starlight Express was, I guess, both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it was a malleable space. They were able to do all of this to the auditorium and build this bespoke layout with the audience seating involved in different areas of the stage and make it completely fresh. But also, it was always going to be temporary. It was always going to be finite. There was some conversation in the early days of this revival where they said the plan would be for it to run for a few years in London until it no longer could, and then maybe travel elsewhere in the uk. I think there might have been talk of somewhere like the Midlands or Manchester, or I may be entirely making that up. In any case, that now seems to have been slightly reworked as a world tour, and I'm curious as to whether or not that's been because of surprisingly low ticket sales. But we'll get to that. For now, a little more about these Troubadour theaters, because Starlight isn't the only show playing in one of those venues. The newly built Troubadour Theatre in Canary Wharf, where the Hunger Games on stage is playing, is another of their venues. They are also building a couple more on the river. They're building in a few more locations, interestingly enough, the exact details of which you can certainly seek out and discover more about. What I'm curious about is whether or not there will be another tenant at the Wembley park venue before its closure and how close we actually are to its closure. Now. You could say maybe that's just what this is. Maybe Starlight is only ending its run because the time has come for the theatre to be, I guess, demolished and turned into whatever it's going to be next. Presumably it's the site for a big housing project. And honestly, not that I'm happy to be losing a theatre, but if I have one fewer reason to be in the vicinity of Wembley Stadium when they have concerts that's there, then that can only be a good thing. It's ironic that the worst part of seeing Starlight Express was trying to get the train afterwards. And for various reasons, I don't think that that is why Starlight is closing at this time. I don't think it's Troubadour theatres who have pulled the plug with a final end date here. For one thing, that would have been pointed out more centrally within the press release. You know, there's already a little bit of PR happening here in terms of the way that it's being framed. This production's coming to an end, but they're launching a world tour, so that's very exciting. And it's a final extension. They're not using the word closing in big, ominous red letters. If it were the fact that they're only closing because the theatre is going to disappear very shortly afterwards, then they would have said that. And also, it has been observed for some time now that Starlight Express in London has not been selling as well as you might have expected when there was this huge initial buzz about its return. And we'll talk about that in just a moment because I think it's fascinating, but it does then beg the question if this theater is not about to disappear, but Starlight is about to end its run there. Is there going to be a different final show at the Troubadour, Wembley park, or is, you know, how much time is left? That's the real question here. I'm not sure they've ever actually publicly stated what the finite end date was going to be for this venue, but I know Andrew Lloyd Webber spoke about how long Starlight Express would be able to run in London when it was opening. I just don't know if he was specific. Oh, here's what he said. He said, we don't know how long we will be able to stay here at Troubadour, Wembley park, as they are going to redevelop it. I am sure we will be here for a couple of years. It has been two. It will have been two. But if they do redevelop it, then I would want to move it to somewhere up in the north. I would like to do that. Which at this point could actually still be very possible, because the wording of world tour allows for a great many possibilities. I mean, it contains literally everything. And Moulin Rouge is currently on, I think, what that's calling a world tour or an international tour, which includes many different UK and Ireland tour stops. So there's every possibility, in fact, I think it seems quite likely that wherever they do decide to launch, the world tour of Starlight Express will probably be in the uk, which is obviously fantastic for regional audiences. But I am still curious about what's next for Troubadour, now that Starlight is, you know, pulling away on the tracks. It's always an element of these conversations about show closures where we question, you know, what's the next show at that theater going to be? And with this one, it's a really interesting question because it's, is there even going to be a next show or is it, you know, is it just going to be flats? Is it the case that the venue itself is quite challenging to reach? You know, it's not centrally located within the West End. It's not quite as ideal for Tourists, they're not going to stumble upon it unless they're already traveling out to Wembley, which you only really do if you have plans. Does that make it difficult for any new production, trying to establish word of mouth, trying to find an audience? Was that one of the thorns in the side of Starlight Express, that it was, you know, more challenging for people to get to? Maybe people were more reluctant to travel out to Wembley. I know I kind of was on occasion. We kind of saw the same thing with Newsies, which had this great initial buzz. It was the UK premiere of Newsies as a musical. People were so excited that it was here, they could finally see it and it had really substantial fans. But that enthusiasm started to decline a little bit. And I've said before that, like, a solid fan base is never really enough to sustain a show, particularly one in a large venue. You need to have more general traffic. You need to appeal to the tourists and to the families. And so it does create challenges when the show is not in proximity to the theatre district and everything else happening in London. And for anyone who hasn't made the journey and is curious what kind of distance I'm actually talking about here, it's about half an hour on public transportation from Leicester Square. The show tried for the longest time to push this idea of it only being two stops on the Metropolitan Line from Baker street, but they're pretty long stops and you already have to get to Baker street before that can apply. And even though Mr. Lloyd Webber in that interview said, I'm actually glad the show isn't in the West End, a lot of the wording around the production still suggested that it was. It was still called the West End revival of Starlight Express. It was still eligible for all of the same awards, even though the New York equivalent of this would have been, you know, Starlet Express. Express coming back to Broadway only in Brooklyn. Anyway, enough about venues and geography. Those who have been watching for long enough will know that I am not Mickey Jo Places. Let's talk about the success of the show and the audience response to it. Coming back to London.
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After so many years. Now, the thing that you need to know about Starlight Express is that it had this real generational fondness and sort of beyond even the bubble of theater people. There are many, many in sort of the generation above mine, in my parents generation who had fantastic memories of being aware of the original production of Starlight Express or seeing the original production of Starlight Express. It was a huge hit. It was a long running hit. A lot of people saw that show at a really big theater for a really long time. They saw those actors skating up into the dress circle and high fiving them. Of course they're going to remember that a generation later and they're going to want to take their kids. That I think was a really big selling point of Starlight Express coming back to London after so many years. It had not only family appeal because it has always been a very family ready show, but also the nostalgia factor. Something which I think is selling an awful lot of tickets to an awful lot of shows. It's the factor that Disney underestimated when they didn't think Hercules was going to be as big a hit as it was in London. It's a big reason, I think, behind much of the success of the stage version of My Neighbor Totoro. But the thing about nostalgia is that it can be a very fickle mistress. And in order to deliver on that, when those audiences go who saw the original production and take their kids to go see this new production, or perhaps just returned by themselves to go see this new production. Not everything has to be about children. There is sort of the expectation, even if it's a new interpretation, even if it's a different set, different costumes, new songs, new lyrics because it's Lloyd Webber, so many changes to material that there is some recognition and familiarity. Nostalgia doesn't work if you're not going like, oh yeah, that's Starlight Express and it's such a reworked version of the show both aesthetically and in terms of its material that I'm not sure it necessarily delivered that for all audience members. And a lot of people may have been waiting to find out a little bit more about what it was like what it looked like, what the response was before booking their tickets. And I think, as well as the geography of it all, one of the reasons we may have seen an initial wave of enthusiasm that kind of began to decline after that initial advance ticket sale might have been to do with this idea of a certain lack of familiarity. And there's been a lot of success for this production of Starlight Express. There's an awful lot it does very well. The easiest way to explain this, I think, is that the show has always lived at the intersection of a Venn diagram of musical theatre and theme park entertainment. And I think the original production, the one that is still running in Bochum, Germany, with some updates and changes, is a better theme park production because it delivers on the adrenaline and the scale and the audacity and the speed and the skating and the dancing on roller skates, far better, I think, than the new production. What the new production is is a much better musical that has clearer storytelling, fewer plot holes, more sound science, for what it's worth. And also under the new direction of Paddington, the musical director, Luke Shepard, seems very much to be aimed towards young audiences. It's going to be completely enchanting and mesmerizing to children seeing one of their first shows. And for that to be Starlight Express, which I think is a very lovely thing to do. And you can go and listen to my review from a couple of summers ago to find out what I thought about this new production. There is certainly an element of it that disconnects a little bit from nostalgia for the original. I think there are a lot of Starlet Express purists who weren't necessarily fond of this. At the same time, there would have been many, undoubtedly Starlight Express fans who were thrilled to have the chance to see any version of the show again and may have loved all of the changes. The inescapably difficult thing as well, about targeting a family audience is the obvious price of Western Theatre tickets in duplicate or triplicate or quadrupled when you're taking the entire family. And while Starlight did have some reasonable ticket schemes, everything is expensive at the moment. Tickets are expensive. Traveling to those theatres is expensive. Staying at a hotel overnight is very expensive. And it's potential family audiences who will be feeling that pinch more acutely. And there's been a lot of talk about it being a smaller version of the show, which it sort of is, only by the standard of the huge original production. You know, you can't really go and see this show and call it small or intimate, it still has performers skating down these ramps, racing around the audience. It is slower. It is also safer, which I think is an important thing to point out. The majority of the cast are recent graduates, debuting talents, far fewer of whom, not none, but fewer, have been injured in the line of duty, as it were, than in the original production or in the Bochkem production. Say what you will about this version of Starlet Express, it has broken fewer trains. Whatever the reasons though, the result was the same. For some time now, Starlight Express has not necessarily been pumping iron at the box office, as it were. And since box office grosses are not publicly reported here in the uk, we also don't know whether the revival has financially recouped during its two year run. You'd have to imagine if this had been playing at any other theatre. The run might have ended sooner because the theatre owners may have been eager for a more profitable show to come in. But where it is in Wembley park wasn't necessarily desirable nor particularly manageable for any other shows. We also, as I said, don't know how much longer is left on the clock there. In any case, that does sort of summarize the reasons why Starlight Express is coming to an end. I was surprised that the announcement happened when it did, but the writing had been somewhat on the wall for some time now. What is exciting is the announced world tour and that more people around the world are going to have the chance to see this completely unique musical. And I will be very intrigued to find out which countries this world tour is actually going to be visiting. Like I said, I do expect there will be a regional British presence at some point. I also think it's going to be really interesting to see if it goes anywhere in the vicinity of the long running German production, allowing audience members potentially to see both versions in one day. If they're really quick about it. High speed trains will have to be involved. I dare say there will be Asian tour dates. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of an Australian presence. A big question here. Is it going to go to the us? Is it going to go to New York? Is there going to be Starlight Express anywhere nearby to Broadway? I mean, it's so interesting to consider how they're going to tour this production and whether they are going to, you know, tour essentially this entire auditorium or try and adapt it to various different spaces. It's quite challenging to do that. The lame is arena tour, for all of its grandeur, sort of just needed big stages. Starlight needs very specific circumstances and logistics. They wouldn't have announced this, however, if they didn't already have some kind of a plan. So I am excitedly waiting to find out. And when we do find out more, perhaps we will discuss it on here. In the meantime, I think that is everything that I have to say about the upcoming London closure of Starlight Express. If you have any thoughts that you would like to share, please let us all know in the comments section down below. If you'd like to see this production for yourself, and you haven't yet, you have a couple more months in which to do so. If you'd like to hear some more about it, you can go and check out my review. And if you'd like to stay up to date with all of the latest theatre news, and for whatever reason you haven't yet subscribed here on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe. We are currently just shy of 100,000 subscribers, which would be a fun little milestone. Alternatively, of course, you can follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening. I hope you've enjoyed. I have been Micky Joe and I hope, as always, that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
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Are you really buying a car online on autotrader right now? Really? At a playground? Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers. Wow, your search can really get that specific. Really? And you just put in your info and boom. Cars in your budget.
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Mom needs a second.
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Honey, you can really have it delivered. Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie, Mommy's buying a car. I think your kid is walking up the slide, Kyle.
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Again?
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Really? Auto trader.
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Buy your car online? Really?
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