Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Starlight Express’ has confirmed its final shows in London

The first time around, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s train-tastic musical opus Starlight Express ran for a walloping 18 years, one of the most successful theatre productions in West End history. The second time around, its first major revival has lasted under two years: it’s just been announced that Luke Sheppard’s 2024 production will be heading to the great train shed in the sky (it’s actually going on tour) in early May.

That’s not bad, though: two years is still bloody good, especially considering it was staged miles away from the West End at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre. Starlight Express got largely great reviews, and just because a show has done one 18-year-run it doesn’t follow that it’ll have a second – a lot has changed since Webber’s zeitgeist-chomping ’80s heyday. 

And you’ve still got a few months to see it: the family friendly musical about a group of racing trains will remain fixed to the tracks throughout the upcoming half term and Easter holidays before pulling out of town on Sunday May 3.

Exactly what will replace it is an interesting question. When it launched Troubadour Wembley Park was simply a receiving house for a rotating hodgepodge of shows, but with Starlight Express and The Hunger Games: On Stage – at sister venue Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre - there are signs that the Troubadour chain of large, modern outer London theatres is moving towards a West End-style model of focussing on long runs of individual shows.

Wherever the case, you have about four months to see Starlight Express. And for lovers of retro-Webber fear not: a hotly anticipated new production of Cats will debut at the Open Air Theatre this summer.

Starlight Express is at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, until May 3. Buy tickets here.

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