Aspects of Love - Review

Lyric Theatre, London

***

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Lyrics by Don Black & Charles Hart

Based on the novel by David Garnett

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Michael Ball and Laura Pitt-Pulford

Returning to the London stage and complete with re-vamped orchestrations, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black / Charles Hart’s Aspects of Love takes up a modest residency at the Lyric Theatre .

Michael Ball who starred in the original production as the young Alex, here tops the bill as the avuncular George, in this curious tale of love that according to Messrs. Black and Hart, changes everything.

Ball is magnificent and so too are his company of Laura Pitt-Pulford as Rose, Jamie Bogyo (Alex), soprano Danielle De Niese as Giuletta and Anna Unwin as Jenny (with on press night Millie Gubby as her character's pre-teen iteration). It all makes for a fabulously performed ménage à cinq that on closer inspection turns out to be a most unappetising minestrone of morals.

Technically, the show is a marvel. Not just in the actors’ glorious work, but in Lloyd Webber’s melodies married with John Macfarlane’s ingenious designs and projections, that make for an evening of exquisite stagecraft.

Ultimately though, the musical is little more than a sung-through panoply of privileged, priapic, polyamory. Go see it for the gorgeous songs.

Runs until 19th August

Photo credit: Johan Persson