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ACT I
A small boy (unseen) is playing with his toy trains until his mother sends him to bed. As he falls asleep, he dreams of his trains and the adventure begins.
A race is announced in which the fastest trains from around the world will compete to see who is the fastest of all (Overture/Entry of National Trains). The contenders are Ruhrgold from Germany, who pulls the Intercontinental Express; Turnov from Russia, power plant of the Trans-Siberia Express; The Prince of Wales from Great Britain, who pulls the Queen's train; Nintendo, the Shinkanse Bullet Train from Japan; and Greaseball, reigning champion from America, pride of the Union Pacific.
Greaseball is flashy and confident in his power (Rolling Stock), feeling assured of another victory. As the contenders prepare for the race, Rusty, an outdated stream train, brings in the support carriages; Pearl, the observation car; Dinah, the dining car; Buffy, the buffet car; and Ashley, the smoking car (A Whole Lotta Locomotion). Pearl loves Rusty, but is unsure of the full depth of her feelings towards him (He Whistled at Me), and the other carriages try to persuade her to forget him.
A freight train pulls through towing a line of heavy carriages and extolling the vitues of hauling Freight. Then a new race contender suddenly arrives, Electra, a brand new state-of-the-art electric engine. Vainglorious, cocky and arrogant, Electra is a truly AC/DC character. Greaseball returns. Weighing up the new challenger, he still insists that diesel is better and that he will win the race (Pumping Iron). An announcement is made that every engine must team up with a carriage to be elligible to enter the race and the trains begin to bicker as they search for partners (Coda of Freight).
Rusty, an outsider, relegated to the mundane task of shunting carriages around, is deeply in love with Pearl and decides to enter the race to prove himself to her. The carriages tell him that he must be crazy to think he has a chance against the more modern engines, but Rusty is determined and asks Pearl to partner him. But Pearl is still undecided about Rusty, even more so when Electra asks her to be his carriage for the race. She pleads for advice to help her Make up my Heart. When Electra comes in search of her, Pearl, dazzled by his glamour, accepts his offer and elects to race with him.
The race is to be run in two heats, with the leading two finishers in each heat making it through to the final race-off. The first heat goes ahead with Greaseball (racing with Dinah) and Electra (with Pearl) making it through to the final. Without Pearl, Rusty has no partner to race in the second heat and visits his father for advice (Poppa's Blues). Poppa tells him not to be discouraged, and take one of the freight trucks to race with. But Rusty refuses to race without Pearl, so Poppa enters in his place with Dusty the coal truck (slow and heavy, but the only one who would race with him). The second heat goes ahead, with Poppa racing against Turnov and Nintendo. Against all the odds, his slow but sure progress wins the day when the other two racers come to grief, enabling Poppa to emerge victorious.
Poppa has made it to the final, but racing in the heat has worn him out and he knows he cannot continue. He asks Rusty to take his place. Rusty is still reluctant to race without Pearl, but is eventually persuaded and promises to take Poppa's place in the final. The other engines make fun of him, declaring that he will be a Laughing Stock, so Rusty goes off to seek advice from the mystical Starlight Express.
ACT TWO
The engines gather to discuss the final race and who will be the ultimate winner (The Rap). Greaseball steals Pearl away from Elektra as his new partner, leaving Dinah distressed that she has been U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D.. Miserable at first, she soon ends up plotting her R.E.V.E.N.G.E, and teams up with Elektra for the final. The Red Caboose offers to race with Rusty, but he is really in collusion with Greaseball, and causes Rusty to collide with Greaseball as they are lining up for the final. The race is voided. Greaseball insists it was all Rusty's fault and tries to intimidate him into forfeiting his place in the re-run (Right Place, Right Time). Pearl is upset at the cruel treatment of Rusty, but Greaseball persuades her to stick with him.
Rusty is again dispirited and seeks further advice from the Starlight Express (Starlight Sequence). This time, the Starlight Express answers him and Rusty is filled with renewed hope and determination - the starlight is within him, he will race, and win! The other trains prepare for the re-run of the final (Pre-Race Four), which will this time be run on the downhill track. Dinah, meanwhile, has become disenchanted with Elektra because he cannot whistle at her - he lacks the equipment! Elektra must yet again race with a new partner, the Red Caboose.
The race begins. Rusty takes an early lead but Greaseball and Elektra soon draw level as they careen down the steep slope. Greaseball becomes annoyed at Pearl's pre-occupation with Rusty and disengages her. Cast adrift from her engine, Pearl is a runaway, headed for certain destruction until Rusty gathers her up and delivers her to safety. Distracted by Rusty's heroics saving Pearl, Greaseball and Elektra crash and are both derailled, out of the race, leaving Rusty to come home victorious to a hero's welcome.
Greaseball, Elektra, and the Red Caboose eventually reach the finish line, much the worse for wear from 'One Rock n' Roll Too Many'. Rusty, meanwhile has gone missing from the victory celebrations, concerned only with finding Pearl. Pearl has finally realised she is in love with Rusty (Only He) but is afraid she has caused him to lose the race. Rusty finds her, and tells her he won and that he loves her.
Poppa consoles the losers of the race, assuring them that they can be converted to steam! The engines all come together to celebrate a happy ending for Rusty and Pearl, proving that there really is a Light At the End Of the Tunnel.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much-loved musical makes a welcome return to tour the UK in a rejigged (and slimmed down) version with the subtitle 'The 3rd Dimension'. This is a reference to the train races being back-projected onto a screen in 3D (for which we are asked to don 3D 'safety glasses' - collected from a box as we enter the theatre). Whilst the action in the film clips leaves something to be desired, the 3D effects are first class and incredibly realistic as you find various objects flying toward you, as well as a rat emerging out of the screen right in front of you.
The normal stage was adapted for the occasion to better accomodate the live action, with a circular flooring extension reaching out beyond the normal threshhold and partway into the auditorium. The scenery is limited, but the costumes are colourful and designed to make the players the human incarnation of each engine - finished off with helmets, worn only occasionally, in the shape of the trains they represent.
The live action is a red-hot mix of dash and dazzle which more than makes up for the lightweight plot. A roller-skating gymnast gives us a display of jumps and flips from a pair of high ramps which are wheeled on stage from time to time. The rest of the company's skating is very impressive, whether speeding around the stage joined together as a train, or shuffling and dancing in unison, and all done whilst belting out their musical numbers, it makes the show high on spectacle.
The plot, such as it is, is the story of an underdog (steam engine Rusty) winning through against all the odds, and in Kristofer Harding we have a sensitive, vulnerable and immensely likeable Rusty that we really care about - raising a great cheer from the audience when he wins through. He has no mean musical talent either, singing the title song with some aplomb. Gemma Atkins made a beautiful Pearl and certainly sang her numbers beautifully - her rendition of 'Make Up My Heart' was superb. But the best musical number for me was 'U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D.', a hilarious country and western style number sung in petulant style by Dinah (Lucy-Jane Adcock) - spelling out the title word because she couldn't bring herself to say it. When she also spells out the unexpected final word of the song, after her thoughts had turned to revenge, it almost brought the house down. And of course who could forget Michael Samuels who gave a real powerhouse of a musical performance as the old engine Poppa, singing 'Poppa's Blues' and leading the toe-tapping closing track 'Light at the End of the Tunnel'. In fact there are charismatic performances all round from the engines and carriages alike.
This show is now over twenty years old, and to some extent it shows - plus of course you cannot recreate the full spectacle of its long London run on a national tour. But it has been updated in that time (the Hip-hoppers, for example, bringing the show musically up to date by opening the second half with an hip-hop rap). Furthermore, all of the principal ingredients are still there in abundance. Admittedly, the music in general is down a league from the likes of 'Evita' or 'Phantom of the Opera', but the action is great fun, ensuring that this is still a unique experience that is well worth going to see (again).
A spectacular feel-good musical, slightly dated, but good enough to hang on to its phenominal popularity for many years yet to come.