And this is just the audience...

With their elaborate make-up, colourful costumes and roller-skates, they know the show by heart and could sing its songs to perfection. And they are just the fans.

Starlight Express has gathered a lot of supporters on its 18-year run, and both they and the performers who have brought the show to life every night will more than likely shed tears when performers skate around the track at the Apollo Victoria for the last time tomorrow.

The musical has been seen by more than eight million people and taken in excess of £140 million at the box office. Nine thousand lights have created the star effect on a set which has enthralled audiences since the first performance on 27 March 1984.

Starlight Express has become an epic, creating history by being the first West End show to be performed solely on roller skates.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, who wrote the show for his two children who are now in their twenties, said: "It's very sad to see it go. It's the only railway in the country that always worked and never departed late."

Both audience and cast were shocked when it was announced in August that the show was to close.

Jo Gibb, who plays the leading observation car, Pearl, said: "I'm absolutely gutted. There's nothing like it - it's been a brilliant and very supportive cast."

But Starlight Express has not passed without its share of dramas.

In 1993 Lord Lloyd-Webber became convinced that a plot had been hatched to sabotage the show when a sewage pipe burst, forcing the performance to be scrapped half an hour before the end.

Only months earlier leaking water almost wrecked part of the £2million electronic set when clothes were stuffed down a toilet during an interval. In 1984 the show was also called to a dramatic halt when two of the stars collided.

Few people know that Scary Spice Mel B auditioned for the show in 1995 and was successful, but decided to take a job elsewhere. Or that the ghost, who has been seen since the theatre was a cinema, sometimes sits in row Q.

Apollo manager Graham Bradbury said: "We have had people who have become obsessed with Starlight Express - it's one of those shows. Come Saturday there will be tears all round."