#in a typically FEMALE driven toy line

[bellesdomain]

Out of curiosity, which parts of the Wembley revival do you like?

Good question! It's quite hard to pin down... I like quite a lot of what they were trying to do, but I don't think the results are as good as they could be, in terms of telling a cohesive story.

First up, the cast are awesome - talented, passionate, enthusiastic. I may have issues with the direction, but the cast are doing their job amazingly.

I like that they dropped the "National" Engines. While I like the concept of Control being a trainspotter kid who's named the toys after fastest engines in the real world, the Creative Team have shown they're not capable of coming up with non-offensive archetypes. Coco Chanel was *LITERALLY* a Nazi... and she's the model for the "improved" French engine? Brexit is just a joke?? Better to keep the ensemble engines in a fantasy world.

Someone suggested that they could be Zodiac Engines - would be fantastic to give the performers *something* to work with in terms of characters and identity. I don't believe in Astrology at all, but the zodiac signs are factual, and "Red Taurus" could play on being a "typical Taurus" personality, like the way Cats have "three words" to define the character.

I like that they tried to give Pearl more agency - but the attempt was just not thought through. Giving Control the "funny" line of "if you don't decide, I'll decide for you" absolutely breaks her character arc - how can she regret the decisions she didn't make? Really there's no way to have Pearl be a logical, thoughtful character while she sings "Make Up My Heart" - that song defines her as being driven by her feelings, not her brain.

I like that they experimented with changing genders around - but the end result doesn't work for me. The world is painfully lacking in good father figure role models, and losing Poppa loses far more than is gained by having a Mama figure. And Female Greaseball - the cast being amazing make it super fun - but from a story telling angle we lose the Toxic Masculinity bad guy that the story needs as a villain!

Meanwhile we got a half-hearted non-binary representation for Electra - again not criticising Tom Pigram, but if the character is non-binary, why are none of the covers for the role female? Realistically the answer is back to "Make Up My Heart", Pearl's convinced Electra is a "lover", while she's only racing with Greaseball for "Fun". Adding bisexual awakening for Pearl is too complicated, it seems.

They tried to tell two stories at once - the "All genders are equal" Utopia, but at the same time the "We're not gonna take it anymore!" women fighting back. Either would be good, but you can't have both at once and tell a cohesive story! I like that they've tried to get back to a story about racing and winning more than the high-school romance angles, but without fully committing to it, the story doesn't hang together.

Trying to find the positive angle for Hydra... again, fantastic performers make the weak material really fun! But the story doesn't hang together. Why do the other fuel trucks dislike Hydra? Why is he there if nobody uses Hydrogen? But it's neat to try to bring real world technology into the show... but I miss the much richer story with Dustin.

What else... the music sounds pretty awesome? I like the orchestrations, I like that there's nothing half-assed about the theatre, the merch, the advertising. They've fully committed to this show being gloriously ridiculous and nothing to be ashamed of! I just wish it was less "There's no story, so what?" and more "And there's a story to sweep you away underneath the shiny!"