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Starlight Express review: A trainwreck? No, this is an ear-blasting scorcher of a revival, writes PATRICK MARMION

First staged at London's Apollo Theatre in 1984, this new outing could also be the most exhausting performance I've ever witnessed, writes PATRICK MARMION.

The only problem is that the whole titanic creation teeters on a flimsy, saccharine love story between an obsolete young steam train, Rusty, and a prettily upholstered carriage, Pearl. But musical it is, and if the plot feels like sci-fi trainspotting, then Lloyd Webber’s score is an exercise in tune-spotting as over the two-and-a-half hours (including interval), we are assailed by a tsunami of retro-pop parodies. Starlight Sequence, a howling banger of a duet, finds Rusty (Jeevan Braich) responding to Big Momma in a croon that veers between Luther Vandross and Smokey Robinson.

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