Buffy the Buffet Car

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Julie Newman as Buffy (left) with Louise Lenihan as Ashley, Bochum, 2006
Julie Newman as Buffy (left) with Louise Lenihan as Ashley, Bochum, 2006

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. However, she is considered to be the most flirtatious of cars as well, who will race with anyone! In the US tour she introduced herself as a coach who will 'Treat you nice, but you've got to pay'.

Botana was the name of the buffet car in Expreso Astral, the 1997 production put on at the Teatro Polanca in Mexico City. Her big song was Con Mucho Chucu Chucu, or A Lotta Locomotion, which she sang with Perla, Vianda and Bacha.

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[edit] Musical Numbers

Buffy doesn't have any solos much like Ashley but she does sing in Freight and A Lotta Locomotion as well as U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D and Girls' Rolling Stock.

In the current UK Tour Buffy 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.

[edit] Costume

Nadia Kovalevskaya as Buffy on Ice
Nadia Kovalevskaya as Buffy on Ice

Like all Starlight Express characters, Buffy has been through many costume changes. She is always based in yellow or gold, and with the exception of the On Ice production, has never had a skirt. She does have a folded napkin down the back of her belt, which has changed size from production to production. The main feature of her costume is the chest box, which is a display cabinet usually showing cakes behind perspex windows. Buffy usually has stockings and suspenders(or leggings that look like them), but in a few London designs(eg. that worn by Roni Bruno) she had 'window' stripes down the sides of plain cream leggings, which brought her into greater unison with Pearl and Dinah. Her leotard is patterned with diamonds, which have been both painted lycra and DeVoré velvet in varying productions. She has horizontal lines on her upper arms, which represent the suspension springs that railway carriages sit on.

The later Las Vegas design, which then toured the US and now tours the UK, managed to give the illusion of Buffy baring more flesh by putting her silver stockings over flesh-coloured body stocking, so that her upper thighs appear naked, replacing the midriff of her leotard with body stocking so that she appears to be wearing a bikini, and lowering the neckline of her chest box so that she has cleavage on display. Ironically, though, she is now the most covered-up of the Coaches, as she has something on her legs.

In Starlight on Ice, Buffy's outfit bore more relation to Dinah's in the other productions. This time, she had a skirt and wears blue and white. Her bodice and sleeves are folded napkins. Her hair is black with a flower sticking out the top, like a vase.

[edit] Wigs

Buffy traditionally has her hair up in a French Twist, with a small hat pinned on top. Her hat often contains a hotdog and some salad, from which she nibbles occasionally. In Bochum, the wig designs can be as experimental as the costume designs were in London and Buffy has gone from French twist to a French plait that went down her back, and currently looks more like a traditional Dinah wig in ginger with a huge fringe and flicked bob. She still has the hat.

[edit] Actresses


London

  • Nancy Wood
  • Robin Cleaver
  • Caron Cardelle
  • Nola Haynes
  • Michelle Ballentyne
  • Voyd
  • Natalie Powers
  • Anna Jane Casey
  • Gael Johnson
  • Rebekka Gibbs
  • Sharon Mudie
  • Roni Bruno
  • Chellie Michaels
  • Amy Field

Broadway

  • Jamie Beth Chandler
  • Lola Knox

Japan/Australia

  • Charlotte Avery

Bochum

  • Carol Hoffman
  • Aiko Nakasone
  • Ivy Fox
  • Anne Tiger
  • Kyla Grogan
  • Kathy McIvor
  • Isabelle Flachsmann
  • Jessica Cooper
  • Danni Kearsley-Wooller
  • Emma Raciti
  • Rachel Marshall
  • Suzy Bastone
  • Louise Jones
  • Emma Nelson
  • Julie Newman
  • Sarah May

First US Tour

  • Nicole Picard

Japan

  • Caron Cardelle

Las Vegas

  • Edyie Fleming
  • Amanda Clarke
  • Brigitte Snowden
  • Jill Petersson

On Ice

  • Nadia Kovalevskaya

Mexico

  • Lilia Sixtos
  • Nitzi Arellano

Second US Tour

  • Joanna Richert

UK Tour

  • Ashley Hale
  • Alexandra Gottschall
  • Kimmi Richards
Kimmi Richards as Buffy, UK Tour, 2007
Kimmi Richards as Buffy, UK Tour, 2007