As the world’s largest international airline serving 140 destinations globally, Emirates welcomes the unique opportunity to present the Arabic language to more than 52 million diverse customers. Ahead of UNESCO’s World Arabic Language Day on 18 December, Emirates highlights the array of Arabic language services available to customers, thousands of Arabic speaking cabin crew, and the wealth and breadth of rich Arabic language content available on its inflight entertainment system – ice.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s updated Starlight Express is a spectacular show for Christmas or indeed anytime you want an energetic vibe. Loud music, strobe lighting, and lots of action with the performers all on roller skates.

Starlight Express is all about trains, and carriages, and there’s a love story too. Rusty falls in love with Pearl, the first-class carriage, portrayed by a small pretty, long blond-haired lady.

The pure fantasy story has been updated from the original, and rejigged to be politically correct. A young child, dreaming of trains, would have been a boy when I was child, but here is portrayed by a chubby little girl dressed in an unflattering unisex boiler suit.

We first meet the child when she is being put to bed by her mother. Her train set which is in her bedroom then magically comes to life, and the engines race against each other to become the fastest in the world. Rusty, the steam train has little hope of winning until he is inspired by the legend of the ‘Starlight Express’, and hitches himself to something that miraculously makes him faster.

The roller skating is superb with the stalls split into two so that the performers can not only skate across the stage but also down to the audience where there is a pathway to create a circle. There’s no doubt that the performers are enjoying themselves with some skating backwards down the slopes. Barriers come up to protect both the audience and the performers.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Starlight Express has its roots in several abandoned projects, including an animated TV series based on Thomas the Tank Engine in the late 1970s, and a film version of Cinderella. The world premiere had its official opening on 27 March 1984 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.

The Starlight Auditorium at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre is a state-of-the-art cultural destination in Wembley Park, London. If you fancy eating before the show, there’s a limited menu at Studio Five Restaurant and a range of eateries on the second floor of the nearby Designer Outlet.

Booking to October 26,2025.

CHECK AVAILABILITY AND BOOK

 

Featured image: The cast of Starlight Express c. Pamela Raith

 

The post Starlight Express review – The Starlight Auditorium at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre appeared first on The Travel Magazine.

Invite nature indoors with this floral trend

Today’s eye-opening tutorial from the Adorama TV YouTube channel explores a variety of pro techniques for capturing sharp and dynamic images of moving subjects when shooting with shutter speeds that are slower than you may have thought reasonable.

Instructor David Bergman is a highly acclaimed photographer whose eclectic portfolio includes a wide range of genres from celebrity portraits, sports photos captured at the Olympics, and images of live performances shot on tour. His unique Ask David Bergman website enables anyone to poise questions on popular photography topics, and you just might see his response to your query right here on Shutterbug.

This episode is his reply to a reader who wondered how slow you can push shutter speed shutter speed when photographing concert photos with action, but the techniques that Bergman explains will prove equally valuable for capturing other types of images. And Bergman provides a variety methods for getting the job done in barely nine minutes.

Bergman’s techniques work the same whether you’re using a camera’s mechanical or electronic shutter. He explains that the shutter speed you choose impacts an images in two ways; namely, exposure and motion. “The faster your shutter speed the less light enters the camera—making images darker.” And because faster shutter speeds capture a shorter slice of time, they give you a better chance at freezing movement.”

But here’s the rub: The foregoing considerations often work in opposition to one another. Here’s a clear example: You may be in a dark environment where you’ve opened the aperture as wide as the lens permits, while raising ISO as far as you’re comfortable given the low-light performance of your camera. But, alas, the image you capture may still be too dark.

So what do you do: “At this point, the only way to brighten up the image is to slow down your shutter speed.” The challenge is that you risk the possibility of motion blur if you go too slow. Fortunately, Bergman leverages his years of experience in a way that enables him to address this seemingly insurmountable conundrum.

And you can too by following his straightforward advice. Best yet, these methods don’t require mad skills or any exotic equipment. There’s a lot more to learn about in-camera and post-processing techniques on the popular Adorama TV YouTube channel so be sure to take a look.

We also encourage you to watch a timely tutorial we featured recently in which another experienced pro demonstrates how she captures festive holiday portrait photographs on the street after the sun drops below the horizon.