It’s World Cup season, and if you heard somebody say it’s a game of two halves, you’d immediately assume they were talking about one of the matches on television, not the latest production of a West End musical.

The current production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium is directed by Tim Sheader, who spearheaded the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of this musical. In fact, the official website says, “The award-winning Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar comes to the West End.” This has left me entirely bamboozled, because I saw that version in the park and was blown away, so much so that we went back to a concert version of it in 2020, when everybody, including actors, had to be socially distanced. Remember those days? This evening, I left the Palladium definitely not feeling that I had been blown away by what I had seen.

The current run is certainly marketed on the star performers playing the roles of Jesus and Herod. Pop-rock and Eurovision star Sam Ryder is Jesus, while the role of Herod is played by a revolving door of big names who drive the price of seats up. Tonight, it was Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson who was playing Herod. PY and I were a bit confused because, when we originally looked at ticket prices for his performances, they were through the roof, and we thought we had booked for one of the less well-known celebrities. Perhaps it’s best we don’t name them. Anyway, it turns out that wasn’t the case. I mention that because it should have added a bit of extra magic to our night. But…

I really don’t know how to describe how I felt about Act One, except that I walked into the interval bar, and when PY asked how I felt, I said it was as flat as a pancake, fully expecting one of our theatre disagreements. Yet we were both of the same opinion. Jesus Christ Superstar opens with much more of a bang, and this was a whimper. For many of the early scenes, Sam Ryder is wandering the stage, looking a bit lost, as if he stumbled into the Palladium by accident. And I really felt the whole of the first act didn’t use his voice to its full extent.

The rotating casting of Herod is, to me, a bit of a gimmick designed to drive up prices. Still, I can see how interesting it is to observe the role played by different people who may attract different audiences to the theatre. So, credit for trying to bring in more diverse audiences. But there’s a second gimmick, and I really don’t understand the point of this one.

In the Regent’s Park production, scaffolding was used as part of the backdrop and scenery and also served as a location for the orchestra. It provided a kind of urban realism and a rock-stadium aesthetic to a quite intense production. It’s been extended at the Palladium to allow for the sale of audience tickets on the stage. Tonight, I felt that this caused two problems.

The first is that, quite frankly, the people on stage are quite distracting. They’re standing, looking at the players, and many of them burst into grins as soon as an actor approaches them. Additionally, the gritty realism provided by the staging and enhanced by the lighting is ruined when an audience member wears bright clothing. A woman in my eyeline was wearing a long, flowing white skirt: a lovely summer outfit for our current weather, but not really in keeping with the atmosphere they’re trying to set. I learned later that on-stage audience members are asked to wear black. Perhaps they should enforce the rule, but I guess that’s pretty hard if you’re raking in the extra cash from the tickets.

The other issue I have with accommodating audience members on stage is that the performance area needs to extend into the auditorium. For this show, it’s more than I’ve ever seen at the Palladium. And that meant a huge swathe of the audience on the upper levels missed fairly extensive parts of the action. PY reckoned he’d lost sight of a third of the action. These tickets were not sold as restricted-view tickets, and many people missed the action for much of the evening.

Now, to me, Act Two was a totally different production. It came alive, and energy surged. Sam Ryder’s voice was properly shown off. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, camping up Herod a little bit, blew a lot of the other performances off the stage, and he’s only there for one song. Can’t knock him for taking the money, especially as he gave a great performance. I’m not sure I’d say the second half came anywhere close to the performance I remember from Regent’s Park, but it definitely improved my overall feeling about the evening.

I still haven’t figured out what the messages with the cast performing with handheld microphones mean, but I’m sure there’s something in it. And I can’t figure out why it switches from what are obviously wireless microphones to ones with enormously long cables. I can see the point of using one of them to tie up Christ; it’s probably some message that I’m not quite getting, but I wish I’d caught that bit.

There are other notable performances. David Thaxton is fantastic as Pontius Pilate; his performance is tremendously conflicted, for example, when he’s not sure what to do with Jesus. And, to be clear, Sam Ryder’s performance of Gethsemane is an example of why he should be so right for the role.

But somehow, it didn’t work for me. Flat seems like a good one-word description. JCS should be more, and the Palladium has all the pieces; they didn’t fit together for me. I can’t put my finger on why this lands differently from Regent’s Park. It can’t be simply because they’re now doing it with a roof.

I wholeheartedly recommend seeing something new instead.

I hadn’t heard of Dark of the Moon until we came across a ticket offer for tonight. Charing Cross Theatre is turning into a great spot for new (to us) musicals—we’ve seen Mythic, Violet, and Stiletto there over the past few years.

I don’t know the play Dark of the Moon is based on, but apparently it’s reasonably well regarded, according to The Internet. But I have to get this out of the way right at the start: the plot is preposterous. A witch boy falls for a human girl, strikes a deal to become mortal, and everything unravels when small-town prejudice and temptation intervene. It is a supernatural folk story, and I guess there is no rule that says it needs to be plausible. But it takes a bit of time to flip the switch that allows it to seem normal.

Richardson and Berney wrote this in 1945, and yet it doesn’t feel like a period story. Sure, the setting of a tight-knit Appalachian community closing ranks against what it doesn’t understand is not familiar (perhaps with the exception of some country music songs), but the dynamic is not. Intolerance doesn’t need a small town; it just needs enough people convinced they’re protecting something worth protecting. And that seems like a very contemporary theme to me.

What impressed me almost immediately was the staging. For what I believe is still an early-stage production, Libby Todd’s set is simple, but cleverly used. The village opens up to reveal its houses and shops, then closes back in to create a village square — or clears itself entirely to give the witches their performance space. Better still, the building rooftops serve as the witch world’s domain, a neat metaphor for the coven’s life high in the Smoky Mountains above the town.

The music and lyrics come from Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum-selling songwriters Lindy Robbins, Dave Bassett and Steve Robson, and you can hear the quality in it. Ordinary Life, one of the opening numbers and recurring themes, sounds right out of the bluegrass country that I imagine when somebody says Smoky Mountains, yet it is also contemporary. Where some reviewers have found the blend of country, bluegrass and rock uneasy, I thought the rockier numbers integrated well. They bring a burst of energy at times. Certified Rockstar, in particular, is a genuine stand-out, a song that could hold its own in a much bigger show.

Much of the credit for that goes to Glenn Adamson as John, the Witch Boy. He is, possibly, best known for playing Strat in Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell, and those echoes can be heard in the production. Adamson, in full rock-god mode, is captivating, and he brings to life John’s bewilderment at everything it means to be human, with the full spectrum of emotions, which keeps the character interesting even when the plot strains credibility.

One dramatic device did wear on me, however. A character from the past — a former witch, a kind of predecessor whose fate shadows the whole story — is sign-posted rather too heavily from early on. The telegraphing is so persistent that the eventual revelation lands with a “d’oh” rather than a gasp. I can’t remember the name you should be listening out for.

The ending. I won’t spoil it, but I left the theatre wishing the writers had taken the other path — the one I’d hoped for — even if that might have strayed too far from the source material. Perhaps my preference for the alternative ending means the show has done its job of making me care.

Nominated for thirteen Fringe Theatre Awards, and not without reason. A flawed but genuinely interesting piece of new musical theatre, with several star performances at its centre: I didn’t mention Barbara Allen (Lauren Jones), who is also fantastic.  Go and fill the theatre.

Small disclaimer: I bought tickets to a preview show. Shows can change while previewing, so what officially ‘opens’ could be different.

Last year, when they released tickets for the new Starlight Express (London, 2024), I bought a couple without realising they were for the first preview night. Effectively, we were part of one of the first paying audiences to see the show. However, quite how many people had paid would be interesting to know, as we were surrounded by people who had something to do with the production (lanyards, notebooks and “see you at the drinks”). Lord Lloyd Webber was at the back. I’m curious to see if the presence of insiders impacted how the audience responded. More on that below. The Producer and Director introduced the performance. I wanted to get my thoughts down quickly so that, when the real reviews come out, I can see if they agree or disagree with what I initially thought.

Before diving into the review, it’s important to provide some context. I was a fan of Starlight’s 1992 reworking at the Apollo Victoria, having seen it multiple times and even catching the touring production. The soundtrack was a regular on my playlist. This fondness for the earlier version undoubtedly influenced my expectations and, I suspect, will colour many of the reviews.

Nonetheless, it was time for the show to be updated. That is neither good nor bad; it’s inevitable. And, if you want to stage a big comeback production, you’ll need to sell a lot of tickets and appeal to more than the nostalgia crowd. Starlight Express is a family show, and today’s kids are not as enthralled by trains as previous generations. This version is updated with new and revised characters and songs (both new and rewritten). You won’t see the Starlight of 1995. This is, however, still Starlight Express. It has not changed beyond recognition. There weren’t many kids in tonight’s auditorium, but there were some, so it’s a small sample to comment on below.

There’s good and disappointing (maybe, bad).

The new Starlight Auditorium is stunning. It’s a wonderful place to see the show. Like the Apollo Victoria, the skaters are out amidst a portion of the audience. We sat in a central-ish area they called Platforms, and the races happened all around us. The video screens are still there, and adding race position scoreboards (new to me) is a nice touch. The introductions peddled the line that the original was one of the first immersive shows. Maybe, but by today’s immersive experiences, this is still a theatre show: you must stay in your seats, and there’s no interaction. That may be nitpicking, but it felt like bandwagon jumping to me. But I can reassure anybody that, in the right seats, you are up close to the action, and that’s part of the Starlight experience that’s been maintained.

In the intro, somebody said there were twelve professional debuts among the performers. They were all incredible. I have no idea how you could skate, dance, and sing for two hours while maintaining the needed control. And our seats were up close. I’d like to think I’d notice the pain if they were suffering. To a player, they looked like they were loving it. And that remains as infectious as it was the first time I saw it.

The inclusion of new songs is relatively seamless. The score has been reworked to fit: at times, I sat trying to work out if I was hearing something new or revised. And the new songs are good: they’re not as familiar, but they’re good (although at least one has been played in the German production for years). The sound system remains as epic and theatre-filling as I remember from other productions. It makes it feel like an experience.

The reworked songs are more complex to comment on because, in my head, you sing along to words that are not there anymore, and that must influence my thoughts. I’m delighted they still work, even rewritten. Somewhere along the way, they sing “going faster than the limits allow,” which (and I had to look it up) is lifted from Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts from Whistle Down The Wind, but immediately made me think of Meatloaf. I’m curious if Jim Steinman gets credit (assuming it’s his lyric).

It’s more than just the songs that have been updated. Engines are no longer named after countries: the German, Russian, French and Italian trains have generic ‘Golden Eagle’ or ‘Orange Flash’ style names. The British train, which never appeared due to leaves on the line, is still referenced. I trust that’s a nod to earlier productions rather than somebody thinking it’s still an original joke. Ashley, the smoking car, is replaced with a ‘quiet car’. The freight ‘Rustys’ are now named after their loads: Lumber for wood, Slick for oil, etc. There’s an additional freight wagon, Hydra, named after the hydrogen it transports. It’s an important introduction to the story. Greaseball is a female character, Electra is a non-binary, “they”. Poppa is Momma. None of this matters, although it’s harder to distinguish between the engines. But the stereotypes of the older versions would jar. The trains have always been about the characters they represent, which works, just as it has always done. One of the criticisms of the 90s reworking was that the original villain, the Caboose, was removed, and the bad guy’s deeds were spread across other characters. In this version, the baddie is restored.

The child controller plays a much more significant part in the reworked show and is a central character. It’s probably one of the better changes.

I wish I could end there because, to this point, I can wholeheartedly recommend that people go and see the show. Fantastic staging, performances, and additive, non-destructive updates would be an excellent place to stop.

But there is a change, and that’s with how the story gels. The tale has changed over other incarnations, and so there’s no reason why the story should not evolve again. At its heart, it was, and is, the story of the underdog steam engine you’re rooting for to win the race and couple with his love, Pearl. It’s all still there. But in this production, the subplots drown out the core story.

If something like Starlight were written today, Electra would be the hero engine, and Steam would be relegated to the evil characters. That would be too big a rewrite for Starlight. So we have Hydra, the hydrogen truck that propels Rusty to the win. But there’s now a new storyline of the good fuel that weaved amongst the others. ‘He Whistled At Me’ has Rusty questioning if whistling at a carriage was appropriate, which takes some of the meaning away from the ‘whistling’ references: it can’t be seen in the same context as before. These don’t sound like significant issues; perhaps they are not. But they blurred the central premise that the audience cheers on Rusty because why wouldn’t you cheer on Hydra or the carriages?

I headed to the interval bar, commenting that the show didn’t feel like it had the pace it should have. It’s about something other than speed skating: who knows if the track is faster or slower? This should be an energy-filled extravaganza. It has the setting, the music, and the cast, but somehow, it’s not. What felt modern, fast, and upbeat 40 years ago needs a turbo boost to feel the same today. And Starlight 2024 doesn’t have it.

You want the audience to cheer when the races start, but they don’t. Applause is played as sound effects. When the cast tried to get the audience to clap along, they succeeded with a portion of the audience, but I observed a lot who didn’t join in, most notably to my eyes, the Producer sitting at the other end of the row where I was seated. Maybe it’s all those insiders I mentioned earlier, but if they can’t be upbeat at the first public performance, why should anybody else?

And to my aforementioned sample of children. Just three in my eye line, so probably unrepresentative. But they didn’t seem involved, one even resting their head on a parent’s shoulder as if to sleep. I don’t know what was missing for them, but the show needs to win kids to succeed. Truthfully, as we were leaving, another child was wide-eyed and singing Starlight. An auditorium with more children might have more energy: it’s not pantomime, but it needs that level of engagement. I hope my experience was an exception, not a crystal-ball view of the future.

I wanted to love it. That could be part of my problem. I didn’t. But I didn’t hate it either: far from it. I enjoyed it. There’s much to be in awe of, notably staging and casting. But I want a new generation to love Starlight as I do, and I fear this production lacks the pace, excitement, and clarity of who to root for to make it a winner with people unfamiliar. The nostalgia crowd will go, and it might be a profitable undertaking on that alone. Abba Voyage proves there’s a market, but I wonder if it’s enough.

I have my fingers crossed. Maybe I’ll even go again to see if I revise my thinking. I will, no doubt, think about it for days to come. We’ll see.