The Starlight Express Keeps Rolling

Continuing on board the Starlight Express, here's another reason I was wary about when they brought Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black's train musical to Broadway from the West End.  I'd mentioned how they redesigned the entire production, from the sets to all the costumes and made it far more heavy-handed (and it was plenty heavy-handed to begin with).  And how they added a silly bookend storyline, which I think weakened the already-thin plot.  And how they cut some songs.

Here's one of the songs they cut.  A very tender tune about unrequited, but hopeful love by CB, a little caboose pining for the lovely dining car, "There’s Me."  (That's Dinah, whose breakup song, "U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D.," I just posted the other day.)  It's another indication of how the show was re-done to seemingly make it more cold, impersonal and distancing.  The show still had a good run, about two years, but it was a tenth as long as it played in London.  I think they made a lot of misguided choices.  Odd for a show that subsequently ran for around 18 years in London.  You'd think the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" might have been worth paying attention to.

This comes from the 1984 original London Cast Recording, sung by Mike Staniforth.  For those sorry to hear that the caboose doesn't get his love returned, don't worry -- he turns out to be a deceptive guy who's a bit traitorous, so no matter how deep his love, he doesn't deserve Dinah...