First-class entertainment

STARLIGHT EXPRESS, Mossley AODS, George Lawton Hall, to Saturday

Mossley’s youth company has been a model of fearless theatre-making for some years now and, technically this one ranks with the best of them.

Mossley’s backstage team has accommodated the need for skating tracks — remember, this tale of steam locomotives requires its cast to act on roller skates — by having ramps descending from the bare stage on to the auditorium floor, where performers can move around freely and even skate round the back of the audience seating. The cast trained for six months to become reasonably proficient on wheels.

Add to this strong sound, a terrific band (MD Paul Firth) and high-intensity motorised lighting and the show looks and sounds good from the opening seconds.

When the engines appear things ramp up again, with perhaps the best set of costumes I’ve seen on an amateur stage, revealing design and execution that wouldn’t look out of place in a medium-scale professional production. The costumes are immensely detailed, bulked up with heavy shoulder pads, chains and appropriate colouring and ornamentation, and augmented by skilful make-up designs.

The performances themselves are models of youthful energy, with determination and movement on every face during director and choreographer Gary Jones-McCaw’s high-speed dance numbers.

Performances can reach top-grade heights, with the likes of Emily Clarke excellent in her country and western style song “U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D” and love triangle object Pearl, a first-class carriage (Emily Lyons), likewise in her solo ballad. There is close-harmony pop singing from the four carriages (the other two are Molly France and Rhona Butler), and with a highly textured band sound, the result is impressive.

A little less impressive is the vocal quality of the performers playing the three main engines — Jake Hankey (Rusty), Josh Hankey (Greaseball) and Tom Kehoe (Electra). There’s little faulting their commitment and drive, but vocal stars sadly they are not — though this doesn’t detract too much from the overall attractiveness of an extraordinarily entertaining evening.