Love Never Dies - But Perhaps it Should Have

The film review this week is a bit different in that it is not about a film.

Last week we went to the Adelphi to see “Love Never Dies” the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, although it is apparently not a sequel – just a musical featuring the same characters, set a few years afterwards and based on a novel that is listed as a sequel to the original show, Not sure how something qualifies as a sequel these days.

Anyway, I have seen the Phantom of the Opera a few times and enjoyed the original novel by Leroux, so I was really hoping that this would be good, unfortunately it put me in mind of the continuing story of the Phantoms slightly simple brother, the most interesting thing in the entire show was actually the concise history of Coney Island - and that was in the programme.

The original, despite being by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Not sure how anyone sat through Stairlight express and didn't wonder how Webber has come to dominate the west end.) was based on a very good story and had some decent songs, The sequel (I'm still going to call it that.) is based on the book the Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth which whilst being a good novel in its self has had all of the depth and it often felt like common sense removed to be replaced by unrememborable songs and the word "hindmost" definitely the show I have seen with this word repeated the most often.

There is no mystery to me at all that the Broadway show has been indefinitely delayed, I kind of wish that the West End show had been as well. Perhaps the clue should have been when I saw that Ben Elton had become involved in the project.

For a real sense of the feelings that this production elicits try checking out the protest group Love Should Die