Aspects of Love w/ Michael Ball - Lyric

I also think that this does Bogyo a disservice. Whilst he may have been woefully miscast as a Bohemian romantic lead, bright eyed obvious romantic Alex is a lot more in his wheelhouse and he’ll have a good stab at filling that room with sound the way that Ball used to fill the POW back in the day. He has a big trained voice.

One of my favourite musicals of all time and definitely top three ALW for me.

Agree with others that the original production was the best. It was simply stunning. Often forgotten about in discussions of the "mega" musicals, but mega it really was. Whilst Maria Bjornson's Phantom designs are (rightly) constantly praised this was her biggest musical theatre triumph for me. The set was extraordinary. Fully automated and massive it just kept changing and folding into scene after scene after scene - almost like a film. John Napier's Sunset had the "wow" moment of the house and the split for New Year's Eve, but Aspects you really did wonder at it constantly - where backstage did they fit it all? The best thing about it though was that it did all this subtley, without ever overshadowing the action. Aspects has since often been described as a chamber piece suitable to smaller stagings (it can be no doubt, but there is certainly cost savings benefits in treating it as such), but I adored it as a mega musical. I was a kid of the 80's though. Sadly the naughty set had eaten Ann Crumb's leg by the time I went, but Susannah Fellows was wonderful.

Having said all this I also loved the productions that followed.

The Gale Edwards tour was all huge white drapes, terracotta and revolve and in terms of colour was much warmer than the original. While the latter was somewhat dark and brooding, this was such more Summery. It also had some fabulous bona fide MT talent in the leading roles.

By the time the Nikolai Foster tour came I had kind of given up hope of seeing a large (ish) scale tour of Aspects ever again so was very pleased to see it. The weakest of the three no doubt but often unfairly maligned I'd say. 14 piece tour orchestras are few and far between and it sounded sublime (why has there never been another cast recording since the original) and I thought the set was pretty good (and stunningly lit) by general touring standards at the time. The David Essex thing. Hmmm. Do agree. You did sit in a sea of his fanclub. And he wasn't the best George. But then, on the other hand, think that's the bums on seats thing that enabled the tour to happen. Sadly, without some kind of "name" I don't think there's enough public interest in this show to make it viable. (Cf the very poor sales of Nikolai's - I think very good - Sunset Boulevard tour).

And for the two smaller productions, I preferred the Hope Mill to the Menier, despite the Menier having the better orchestra. It was just performed so well and the cast were sensational.

Re the comments about Michael Ball, I really don't see it as a vanity project for him. I'd revert to what I said about David Essex. I'd love to think it's a popular enough musical to sell on it's name alone, but I really don't think it is. He's the bums on seats guy. To be honest, I think it's the best outcome to get this show back on stage, as had Alex or Rose been stunt cast or cast as a fangirls fave (with the usual ensuing stage door/flying cupcakes pandemonium) I think it would have been much worse.

I don't really understand the dislike of Jamie Bogyo. He has a gorgeous pure classic MT voice and am sure is more than capable. Moulin Rouge is a tricky one. I have seen 4 Satines and 4 Christians and they have all been fairly generic and, whilst I love the spectacle, I have never really felt invested in the story. I just think the script and direction doesn't give much. Anyway, we'll see how he is in this.

So yeah - guess you could say I am looking forward to this one :-)

It's really not fair to criticize anyone for failing to make the leads in Moulin Rouge come alive. Even in the movie they're cardboard cutouts that Kidman and McGregor fail to ignite, though that would've been the best thing for them.

Aspects has only got one Ball
(is he in the Albert Hall on Mondays?)
Sales for Aspects on Mondays are almost non existent. That's star power.

Interesting pattern the rest of the time. Expensive seats sold, but hardly anything in the balcony. Suggests a lot of Ball fans want to be close up, same with some Aspects fans. Could be a very old audience who luckily didn't need the steps to cheaper levels.

Perhaps it's upcoming, but other than 'we're doing aspects ' I haven't noticed a single mention of 'why now' or what Jonathan Kent sees in it. For me, a mistake to take away the threat of taboo desires between younger Jenny and Alex. It's either a daring exploration of aspects of love, including uncomfortable grey areas, or it's pappy romance.

I like this show but is there a point to it right now? And other than 'Ball is back' when is the production going to state anything interesting about why they're doing it?

They're in danger of putting it into a silo of Michael Ball testimonial dinner.

I can understand the desire to make a change in the age of Jenny lest the show be accused of celebrating paedophilic behaviour.

Producers are increasingly risk averse and so changing it is understandable even if it does diminish the power of the narrative.

Having Jenny as 15 going on 16 might have been a better compromise.

But whilst I may not agree with the change, I do see why the team might wish to avoid a twitter storm

I know this. You know this.

But keyboard warriors are all to eager to see things that aren't there to get over excited about.

Say WHAT?!!!

"Invited to a country villa by a love struck young AMERICAN, Alex Dillingham, she impulsively accepts".

How did I miss that on the show's website? I just assumed an American actor was going to play it English.

Alex Dillingham really doesn't sound like an American name (I guess it's never said out loud in the text). I just can't hear "She'd Be Far Better Off With You" working with the accents oscillating between American Alex and English George. Why is Alex so different from ultra-English fake-artist Uncle George? Do Americans say "Civvy Street"? - I don't think so. Can the actress playing Rose slip in an extra syllable and sing "You're a long way from New England" without ALW doing his nut and saying 'If my Memr'y serves me right, I wrote no extra grace note for the word New to be added'? So many questions.

Give poor Jamie Bogyo a break.

He will be focusing so hard on trying to act and not walk into the furniture - don’t make him attempt an English accent too.

Having said that- I would love to hear his attempt 🤣

American soldier still there after the liberation of France, takes time to indulge his love of Ibsen plays, falls for French actress who he takes to a villa he has access to because, conveniently, he has an English Uncle who owns the villa.

In film a McGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters. For a while now, in Andrew Lloyd Webber productions, it's necessary to add something or someone outlandish in pre-production to ensure there's something to blame if it fails.  How about not building in hopeless ideas to hide behind, and not failing?

Too many things seem to be contorting production choices - 'how can we get Michael to keep his big song?' was the first.  That song is the worst thing in the show - absorbing it as naturally as possible into action and character is the best thing to do, and for that you need Alex to be an excellent actor. Rather than the "yay here it comes" moment for Michael.  Just pray he's able to resist doing the 'back of net' double fist pump he did in the promo video on the two notes before "off into the world we go" which seemed to signal him saying 'I know this is cheese, so why not?'.  We don't know if Alex was conceived as American for this version before they cast it, or they cast it and decided to go with the line of least resistance on accent. 

I hope this production turns out to be a revelation and visionary.  If so, I'll certainly come back here and eat a huge piece of humble pie, but it all seems seriously off kilter so far.  In promotion, they've not put out anything mildly interesting or grown up about the interpretation of the piece which really annoys me.

Very true.  Though I think I've come up with a workaround over the knotty problem of casting English Alex, lol.

Still haven't taken the leap and bought tickets yet... What are the cheap balcony seats like in this theatre? I reckon I'm going to buy the RV Balcony tickets for £28 and then go for the inevitable rush tickets later, given how poorly this seems to be selling overall.