Ashley is the smoking car from Starlight Express

Starlight Express

Starlight Express is a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Richard Stilgoe and Arlene Phillips , with later revisions by Don Black and David Yazbek . The story follows a child's dream in which his toy train set comes to life; famously the actors perform wearing roller skates...

, a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

 which follows a child's dream in which his toy train set comes to life. She's sweet and loving but has a bad habit when it comes to smoking. She is mature and experienced, offering worldly relationship advice to Pearl

Pearl the Observation Car

Pearl is the "new girl" character and female lead in the West End musical Starlight Express. She is a railway observation carriage, although in Germany she is referred to as the "first class car"...

 and Dinah

Dinah the Dining Car

Dinah is the sweet, Southern and lovable dining car from Starlight Express. She is hopelessly in love with Greaseball and her best friend is Pearl the observation car. She races with Greaseball during the 1st Heat but when she complains about his cheating afterwards, he uncouples her and races...

.

In Expreso Astral, the 1997 Mexican production of Starlight Express, Ashley was renamed Bacha.

Musical numbers

When Belle was taken out, she took over the vocals in "Rolling Stock." She also sings along with the cars during Freight and A Lotta Locomotion. During Girls' Rolling Stock and U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D she sings along with Buffy

Buffy the Buffet Car

Buffy is the smart, sweet and sassy buffet car from Starlight Express. Buffy, being the most mature of the cars in most productions, usually gives the best advice she can when it's needed...

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In the current UK Tour Ashley has no major contributions to any of the songs other than the sexually-loaded Whole Lotta Locomotion, and is reduced from secondary principal to being an ensemble role.

Costume

Ashley wears a tobacco brown costume, with a panelled bodice, a brown velvet skirt and ashtrays under the bust, which she uses. She carries a prop cigarette in one of them. Her costume contains many details lifted directly from antique Smoking Cars. Her leggings were originally plain brown, with fine gauge black fishnets on top. Like all Coaches, she has wheels on her gloves. In later years her skirt was a patterned brown velvet miniskirt, with three panels over the back, and brown tasselled braiding around the bottom.
On Broadway her leggings were painted, a dark brown with orange cross hatching and a strip of 'windows' down the outside of each leg. Her skirt became a distinct lampshade shape, and her arms cream with black cross hatching, where in London they were simply black. She wears a "SMOKING" placard as a necklace.

In Las Vegas Ashley's leggings came off, as did her sleeves between the tops of her gloves and her bodice. Her skirt became a draped miniskirt not a lampshade. This design then toured the US in 2003, and now tours the UK although it now includes fishnet tights.

In Starlight on Ice, Ashley's costume is designed to look like a cigarette inspired usherette. On her skirt is a purple box that reads 'smoking' in big white letters. Her hair is wispy instead of styled. She has metal ashtrays around her shoulders rather than under bust.

Wigs

Ashley usually has a brown wig, styled up into a chimney at the back in the place of a bun, with a thick fringe. The chimney is often made up of narrow braids, but recently in Bochum has straight hair combed over the shape instead, crossing over at the base of the skull. Exceptions to this are the On Ice production, where everything was different, and some mid-London years where she had a frizzy explosion of reddish brown.

Actresses

London

• Chrissy Wickham
• Voyd
• C Jay Ranger
• Erin Lordan
• Nikki Belsher
• Victoria Maxwell
• Anna Louise Mountford
• Samantha Lane
• Lisa Peace
• Claudia Bradley
• Deborah Spellman
• Dawn Buckland
• Francesca Newitt
• Danni Kearsley-Wooller
• Amanda Valentine
• Lucie Fentum

Broadway

• Andrea McArdle
• Stacia Goad

Japan/Australia

• Erin Lordan

Bochum

• Roslyn Howell
• Johanne Simpson
• Lisa Peace
• Susan Torbeck
• Elizabeth Holum
• Bernadene
• Kati Farkas
• Erika Metz
• Kirsty Sparks
• Sharon Mudie
• Caroline Arrowsmith
• Emma Raciti
• Sarah Landy
• Louise Lenihan
• Deborah Hayward
• Tasha Taylor Johnson
• Emma Jenkinson

First US Tour

• Rachelle Rak

Japan

• C Jay Ranger

Las Vegas

• Meera Popkin
• Jennifer Bizik
• Amanda Clarke
• Angel Creeks

On Ice

• Natalia Zagorodnikova

Mexico

• Diana Navarro

Second US Tour

• Kait Holbrook

UK Tour

• Amy Field
• Amy Thornton
• Saskia Lockey

New Zealand Tour

• Sarah Landy