Director: Simon Phillips
Starring: Ben Lewis, Anna O’Byrne, Maria Mercedes, Simon Gleeson, Sharon Millerchip
Certificate: E – Exempt from classification
Running Time: 121 minutes approx
Extras: The Making Of Love Never Dies
I’ll start this review with an admission; I am not the world’s biggest musical theatre fan and, in truth, I find it all a bit silly and dull; but I’ll try to stop this getting in the way whilst conducting this review of LOVE NEVER DIES, recently released on Blu-ray and DVD.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is the most successful theatre production of all time, and is the highest grossing piece of entertainment (in any form) ever, taking to date an incredible $5.6 billion. So as is now the norm a sequel was always likely, but they took their time about it, 25 years to be exact.
LOVE NEVER DIES picks up the story of our rather dubious Phantom (Ben Lewis) – 10-years on from events of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA – in a circus living amongst the freaks and sideshows (their words not ours) in Coney Island. He’s not happy with this though as he pines for his Christine (Anna O’Byrne) so, as you do, he manipulates things so Christine, husband Raoul (Simon Gleeson) and son Gustave arrive from Manhattan. From here he tries to win Christine’s heart and steal her from the, obviously over-bearing, Raoul, but theres a twist in Meg (Sharon Millerchip) who is inexplicably in love with the Phantom and her jealousy will play havoc on the Phantom’s nefarious ploy.
With my earlier admission in mind I was very trepidatious when it came to sitting down on a rainy Monday afternoon to watch this, you see one of my dislikes in film is over-acting and musical theatre is full of over-the-top performances with outrageous expressions and more gesticulation than you can shake a stick at, but before all of these things there are issues with LOVE NEVER DIES. The premise is one that does not make an appealing watch; two people who are determined to be together at whatever cost, even the tearing up of a family who, in all honesty, seem perfectly happy at the start of the production, also The Phantom is a character who is very polarising; there is after-all an allusion to a possible rape in the original production, and for this reason it is difficult to have sympathy for his plight. The biggest bugbear on show here though (and this is a big problem) is all the bleedin’ singing; I acknowledge it’s musical theatre but blimey it grates when they bleat on for 4-5 minutes on a subject that would have taken 30 seconds to sum up in a concise sentence, and the filming of the production is such that it feels very separate from the audiences experience and I feel one hard camera would have been much more effective at capturing the spectacle. On the positive side the sets and costumes are truly incredible given this is a stage show and well, um that’s about it.
Musical theatre is not my bag and LOVE NEVER DIES has done nothing to change this it’s dull and silly in my eyes, but I’m not the audience; there will be people out there who have yearned for this to be released and I hope they enjoy it, but I sadly did not.
Extras: The Making Of Love Never Dies is a nice look at the main protagonists and their feelings on the show.
LOVE NEVER DIES is available on Blu-ray and DVD now
Mary
Apr 25, 2012 at 7:39 am
Why on earth would someone with no ear for music, no heart for art and no soul for romantic drama, ever want to try and review a piece of artistic, musical theatre, permeated with the age old romantic theme?
Like, why waste your time?
You write quite well, so my honest suggestion is either learn to appreciate the finer arts before reviewing in future or review stuff you are good at and have an ear, heart and soul for.
No offense meant here and my kindest thoughts to you.
Tom Fordy
Apr 25, 2012 at 9:24 am
No other bugger would do it. He’s a hero. We’re an uncultured bunch here at THN Towers – Ed.