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Review
Aspects of Love review, Southwark Playhouse: not vintage Lloyd Webber, but it still fascinates
The next Andrew Lloyd Webber sensation looks likely to be as much “about” the composer, as “by” him. A workshop in November at The Other Palace – his dedicated home (but no longer exclusively so) for musicals – saw the trialling of a show based on his autobiography Unmasked, with script by Richard Curtis.
Mind you, he’s also working on a revisionist musical of Cinderella. Factor in a recent brief reboot of Starlight Express, behold the undimmed popularity of The Phantom of the Opera and stomping success of School of Rock, brace too for a 50th-anniversary revival of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – and what a glorious Indian summer he’s enjoying. It’s as if he’s 70 going on 17.
It’s recalled and relived teenage ardour that’s the well-spring of Aspects of Love, based on a 1955 novella by David Garnett. A curio in the ALW back-catalogue, it was technically a West End hit when it opened 30 years ago, raking in millions, running over a thousand performances and making a household name of Michael Ball (who almost took its stand-out number Love Changes Everything to the top of the charts). Despite various revivals, though, it suffers the reputation of an also-ran. In New York, the “Butcher of Broadway”, the New York Times’s Frank Rich, thought its evocation of romantic entanglements across three generations stirred “as much heated passion as a visit to the bank”; it flopped.
In theory, this fresh production – originally seen last year at Manchester’s rising fringe venue Hope Mill – has what it takes to make us appreciate the show’s under-sung virtues. In 1989, the emphasis was on a lavish presentation not entirely in keeping with its chamber-opera ethos; capable director Jonathan O’Boyle gives us Lloyd Webber unplugged: two pianos and some percussion.
Initially, it looks and sounds just the ticket. There’s no obvious stinting on design – an imposing row of slatted screens at the rear, beautifully back-lit at times, with lush flowers over-hanging the stage, helps whisk us to verdant Pau in southern France, circa 1964, where our hero, Felix Mosse’s Alex, is attending the funeral of his uncle George (Jerome Pradon) – also his erstwhile rival for Rose, an actress. As he remembers bygone days, quietly and tentatively crooning Love Changes Everything, slowly building in heartfelt intensity, it feels as though the scene is ripely set for an unforced kind of emotional connection.
Somehow, however, the sense of what follows fundamentally mattering – as the action rewinds 17 years, taking us off to Paris, and Venice too – gradually slips away. Mosse has a sweet bloom and tenderness that makes us sympathise with his green character at the outset, all brittle confidence as he woos – then loses – the older woman (a stronger-voiced Kelly Price). Yet like the other dramatis personae Alex resembles a cipher, the mouthpiece for reiterated expressions of – and meditations around – desire. Every exchange is through-sung, which piles on the earnestness; taken together with the unrelenting piano accompaniment, the effect is old-school melodramatic, with occasional hints of church-hall too.
The second half should move us into territory that’s even more risqué these days (the almost-reciprocated devotion of Alex’s underage cousin Jenny, fruit of the union between George and Rose). But there remains something restrained about the exercise: the lulling music with Don Black and Charles Hart’s anodyne lyrics barely sound the darkest undercurrents of the stated torrent of passion. On the evidence here, Aspects still lacks what it takes to join the ranks of Phantom, Evita et al. Yet it fascinates. Perhaps Lloyd Webber should summon it to the Other Palace and permit more radical tinkering than just rampant tinkling.
Until Feb 9. Tickets: 020 7407 0234; southwarkplayhouse.co.uk