Review: Love Never Dies



Photo: andrewlloydwebber.com

Any person's reaction to finding out that Love Never Dies is the sequal to Phantom of The Opera is usually either a frowned brow, a scornful chuckle or simply a long 'What?!' (Mine was certainly the latter)

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's decision to spin-off Gaston Leroux's classical story about the impossible love between a deformed musical genious and his apprentice still baffles people today (that is if you exclude the improbable reason to wanting to heave in thousands of pounds of course).

Set out across the Atlantic in New York, Love Never Dies takes us ten years after the Paris Opera House has burnt down. The Phantom (Ramin Karimloo) and his protegés Madame Giry (Liz Robertson) and Meg (Haley Flahrety) have established themselves at the vibrant funfair, Coney Island.

As the title suggests, Phantom is still very much in love with Christine (Celia Graham) - the obsessive love of his life whom married another man, and yearns to get her back. Such plans are at work when Christine comes to New York for a special performance together with her now drinking-and-gambling-happy husband, Raoul (David Thaxton), and their neglected 10 year-old child, Gustave.

While Karimloo does a strong and intimidating Phantom, the real star of the show is Thaxton, whose troubled Raoul is impeccably portrayed. After Thaxton's moving performance of the melancholic 'Why Does She Love Me', one would a heart of stone not to root for him in the strife over Christine.

From the inside of the Phantom's tower to a lonely beach, the set is consistently breathtakingly extravagant. One of the most ingenious scene arrangements were the introduction of Coney Island, in which the curtain is used as a projector showing the funfair's surroundings while the actors move behind it, giving the scene a vivid sense of Coney Island's vibrant atmosphere.

However brilliant and stunning the acting and set may have been, Love Never Dies couldn't make up for the dull and overreaching story line - and not to mention the awkward personality changes of the main characters. What's most puzzling is still why they insisted on creating a relationship between Phantom and Christine that never was intended. Adding to the awkwardness is 'Beneath A Moonless Sky', in which Phantom and Christine sing (more or less) word for word about their night together.

How much one may have wanted to know what led to Christine death in Phantom of The Opera, we definitely could've done without.

Love Never Dies (2010) Andrew Lloyd Webber, Aldelphi Theatre, London
Performance: 19/04/11

Tiffany