– Customer review on 26/01/2012

Enjoying immensely. Listen and watch often. Can highly recommend.

– Customer review on 29/05/2011

Twenty years after the original smash-hit "Phantom of the Opera" (which knocked "Cats" off it's scratching post in 2006 as the longest-running musical in Broadway history), Andrew Lloyd Webber has finally come through with the long-awaited sequel, LOVE NEVER DIES.

LOVE NEVER DIES picks up the story ten years after the events of the original "Phantom". Following his mysterious disappearance in the underground lair, the Phantom was quickly spirited away to America by Madame Giry and her daughter Meg; and has now established himself as the most successful, albeit mysterious, impresario of New York's bustling Coney Island fairground. For his latest venture at "Phantasma", the Phantom--using the new alias of Mr Y.--finally manages to lure his beloved opera singer Christine Daaé, her husband Raoul and their young son Gustave, to perform in America for the first time...and the scene looks set for a dramatic confrontation...

Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn't had a hit new musical in years ("The Beautiful Game" was a forgettable mess, and "The Woman in White" failed spectacularly on Broadway despite a respectable, two-year London run); so the stakes were high for Lloyd Webber to extend the story for his most successful, beloved and most personal work. Does it succeed? Well, yes and no. Ben Elton's plot (loosely adapted from Frederick Forsyth's "Phantom of Manhattan") has enraged longtime "Phans", who have denounced it as nothing more than illogical, worst case-scenario fan-fiction, the characters bear little resemblance to how they were seen or portrayed in the original "Phantom"; and the score swings, almost wildly in places, from inspired to mundane.

Despite it all, though, Andrew Lloyd Webber has beautifully furnished the world premiere cast of his LOVE NEVER DIES with two performers who have also played their roles in productions of the original "Phantom". Ramin Karimloo is a particularly romantic Phantom with a voice direct from heaven; Sierra Boggess--who most recently originated the title role in Broadway's "The Little Mermaid"--is delightful as Christine. If there is one thing that slightly worries me about Karimloo and Boggess, it is the issue of their relative youth, which definitely plays against the reality of their characters being ten years older! As such, it would have been a dream come true to see Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman back in their trademark roles, but in light of the incredibly demanding score (and indeed, Brightman's reluctance to re-enter the musical theatre scene), I understand completely why this was perhaps never even possible in the first place.