Starlight Express is playing to packed houses in the Starlight Auditorium at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre.
The specially designed performance arena brings out the spectacular best of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock musical.
The musical is invariably reviewed as 'high energy' and this is most certainly the case, with a cast of 40 performing in front of, and through the audience - on roller skates
While this might seem merely a novelty value device, the use of skates greatly enhances the vibrant flow of the musical.
One very quickly forgets what's on the performer's feet as sing, dance and soar through a truly thrilling evening in the theatre.
Starlight Express has been one of the most popular and successful musicals, worldwide, since its premiere at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre in 1984.
The production back then was groundbreaking with a track that allowed the performers to skate through the audience.
Four decades later and it has lost none to its power to amaze and appeal.
Harnessing the child in us
The plot of Starlight Express is a simple one, befitting the story of a young child immersed in toy trains.
In the child's world, the trains and their cars take on human personalities, traits and emotions as they race to be the best locomotive and coupling on the track.
The hero is Rusty, a small steam engine, who is looked down on by the more arrogant, supposedly more modern, locomotives.
Could he ever hope to compete in the race? Your guess is as good as mine, and probably as correct!
Starlight Express is an evening of joyous escape, with 'mind-boggling' costumes, seamless theatrical effects and a string of high tempo pop/rock song and dance routines performed to an unseen band, which one would think was a soundtrack if it was not highlighted at the outset.
This musical has moved with the times and remains as fresh and exciting as it must have been when it first burst onto the stage some forty years ago.