Love Never Dies

Published Wednesday 10 March 2010 at 00:01 by Matthew Hemley

With The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber created the most successful single piece of entertainment in the world, a production which has run in London for 24 years and an all but impossible act to follow, not least for himself.

Of all the shows he has created since, none have matched Phantom musically, lyrically or visually - and certainly not at the box office. So when plans for a Phantom sequel were announced, eyebrows were raised. As the show opens this week, the question on everyone’s lips is whether Lloyd Webber has pulled it off.

The answer is yes, on the whole. Love Never Dies moves the story of the Phantom forward ten years, with the masked anti-hero, played by Ramin Karimloo, still pining for Christine, as the owner of an attraction on New York’s Coney Island called Phantasma, where he has been joined by Madame Giry and Meg Giry, played by Liz Robertson and Summer Strallen respectively.

The Phantom, anonymously, invites Christine, played by Sierra Boggess, to perform at Phantasma. She soon arrives with husband Raoul and son Gustave and is once again forced to make a choice between the men in her life.

Musically, it is pleasing enough, featuring a coherent mix of light opera, vaudeville and occasional rock, with numbers such as ‘Til I Hear You Sing and Love Never Dies standing out. The latter was originally used in The Beautiful Game, but was always intended for a Phantom sequel, according to the composer. Some questioned this decision, but hearing it performed in its new context, one can wholly appreciate why it was done. Quite simply, it works.

Although the score is nowhere near as impressive as the Phantom’s first outing - and could do with a few more rousing ensemble numbers like Masquerade - it is far better than some of Lloyd Webber’s more recent offerings and features welcome musical references to the original.

Visually, the show is stunning in places, with projections designed by Jon Driscoll. This is technology Lloyd Webber first played with in The Woman in White and here they form a large part of the backdrop, particularly in the opening sequence, during which a grey and deserted Coney Island is cleverly brought back to life.

The performances are strong too, with both Karimloo and Boggess delivering superb vocals, as you’d expect from actors who have already played their respective parts in previous Phantom productions.

Summer Strallen also delivers a strong turn, although she is helped by the fact that her character has the biggest journey in the show and is clearly the most developed role. The rest are too thinly drawn and it is this, coupled with a weak book, that ultimately lets the show down. The plot, written predominantly by Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton, is fatally lacking in tension.

Christine’s dilemma - to sing or not to sing for the Phantom - offers no real drama and many of the characters stray so far from the ones audiences have come to know from the original that they can only disappoint.

The Phantom himself, once a menacing serial killer who lived in the shadows and showed little regard for expensive chandeliers, is now a softy, lacking any real mystery, while Madame Giry, once a stern woman of few words, becomes a pantomime villain.

Lloyd Webber would also do well to get rid of three new characters - Fleck, Squelch and Gangle. If their names are not reason enough, the fact they look like they have stepped straight out of Elton’s We Will Rock You should be.

I suspect Love Never Dies will undergo several changes over the next few months and it will probably make these before it opens on Broadway later this year, where the show’s American setting will undoubtedly boost its appeal. But until then, Love Never Dies, unlike The Phantom of the Opera itself, will remain a once is enough show, though not the car crash some had been forecasting.