Starlight Express started life in 1975 as a sort of Cinderella story which I hoped would be an animated movie.

It never got off the ground. Then in 1983 I rewrote it for my children, Imogen and Nicholas, in the version that opened in March 1984 in this theatre. Nine years later we revisited Starlight whose new music was dedicated to my son, Alastair. Starlight was always meant to be fun, hopefully an entertaining piece of live theatre for a new audience.

Everything in Starlight is played and performed live, though the orchestra is invisible under the stage. We are all proud that Starlight not only because the second longest running musical in London theatre history in April 1992, but also has spawned a new generation of theatre-goers who perhaps never considered going to the theatre before and who may have gone on to other (perhaps more conventional!) things.

Andrew Lloyd Webber
From the 1992 London production programme

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