Note: The cast for this production has changed since the writing of this review. For current cast details, please see the Starlight Express listing entry. If you have seen the current cast and would like to send in your comments for posting on this page, please email us.

Starlight Express first opened in London in March 1984. It was revised, with five new numbers added, in 1993. It is now the second longest running musical in West End history (Lloyd Webber's Cats being the first) and, doubtless, the only musical to be performed solely on roller skates.

The premise for the play is impossibly silly. Lloyd Webber has done for trains just as he did for cats - personified them and given them angst. But, while you can work up feeling for characters of the feline persuasion, love and loathing amongst a toy train set is a bit much to swallow.

What there is of a story centres around the championship race which pits likable steamer Rusty (James Gillan) against his more modern and aggressive diesel and electric competitors. As we build up to the big race, we are introduced to the array of locomotive personalities - freight cars, engines, carriage cars - in Transformer-style costume. Despite the rewrite, some of these numbers are looking quite dated, with a fair dose of break-dancing and rap.

Having said that, Starlight Express is very engaging. The set - a race track which loops several times around the entire theatre - is huge and amazing. And it is pretty exciting when the actors whizz by on their skates, inches from your seat.

Even the music, which at first sounds relatively hum-drum, grows on you. By the second act, you are humming along. The last two songs - the romantic “Next Time You Fall in Love” and the adrenalin-pumping “Light at the End of the Tunnel” - are especially hummable and the megamix finale really is good.

Apparently, Lloyd Webber wrote (and re-wrote) Starlight Express for his own children. Kids - and trainspotters - should love it. And, if you're willing to suspend disbelief and cynicism for a night, adults will enjoy it too.

Terri Paddock