I went with my mum and dad, they invested in the original US production of the show, when they put the money in they assumed it was going to be a show that they never saw. A show about trains, where the actors perform on roller skates while they sing and dance and there are races over huge ramps….how could it ever come to little old New Zealand, right?

Well, it turns out they just needed to wait 20ish years for the show to be rewritten and redesigned to make it more travel-friendly. Saturday, after following the progress on twitter for weeks, we went to the matinee performance. We sat in the A block, on the ground, to the left of the stage and a fair few rows back. The view was awesome, the only time we couldn’t see the actors was when the actors lay down on the front part of the stage. Which wasn’t too often.

The story, for those who are not familiar is pretty simple. A kid’s toy trains come alive in his dreams and compete in races to be the greatest engine in the world. The reigning champion is a diesel called Greaseball, our plucky hero is a steam train called Rusty and there’s a new big shot called Electra. Electra is an electric train, just in case it wasn’t clear. The rules of the race say that every engine must have a partner. The women are all passenger cars and available as race partners, the lead is Pearl, who is an observation car, her friends are Dinah, Ashley and Buffy. (Dining car, smoking car and Buffet car.) There are also a number of male freight cars, but of course they are heavier to race with. There’s also a red caboose, the brake car, but he’s a bit evil. The big shot diesel and electric cars make fun of Rusty and ruin his self confidence. Pearl is looking for the best, fastest engine in the world and abandons her old friend Rusty and there are races. It’s actually a Cinderella story, with Rusty as Cinderella.

Traditionally the races are performed on huge mechanical stage ramps, but the new stage design isn’t big enough for that. The races are pre-recorded and shown on three huge screens. The video footage had some cheesy FX and stuff but I think it worked very well.

The Wellington performance was outstanding. The guy playing Rusty was endearing, plucky and cute. Basically perfect for the role. The girl playing Pearl was also very good, although Dinah won my heart with her tragic love story and OTT Southern accent. I think Dinah had the cutest outfit too. Electra and Greaseball were just perfect and I really loved the Hip Hoppers, the 3 near identical freight trucks. Hip hop and break dancing with those skates on can’t be easy, but they made it look natural. Originally these guys were the Rockys, box cars for coal or something like that, and did breakdancing so it was a natural change to make them hip hoppers.

Another highlight is the specially imported from the UK stunt skaters picture via the Wellington Starlight Express twitter feed. The amount of air time those guys got was truly impressive. The backwards flip landing backwards on the ramp in particular took my breath away.

I missed one or two songs in the rewrite, Caboose’s solo and ‘A Lotta Locomotion’ but otherwise the new songs and the rewrite was very good. I have ‘A Whole Lotta Locomotion’ stuck in my head today. I know it sounds the same but it’s quite a different song.

There was some weird stuff about steam being the best kind of power and how awful it is to have an electric train, but overall I think the show has aged well. Overall the show is funny, cheery and very impressive. The audience was very supportive, joining in clapping and waving hands as requested by the characters and even calling encouragement out to Rusty when he was down and out. It’s on for two more days in Wellington and then traveling to Chch for a season and then up to Auckland. The ticket prices are steep but it’s well worth it. It’s more of a spectacle than a standard musical, and the music is really damn catchy.

I went a second time on Sunday night as a friend was sick and didn’t want to waste a ticket. I loved seeing it again, I was able to watch different parts of the choreography and a second time hearing the songs made some of the lyrics clearer.

Highly recommended