Aspects of Love w/ Michael Ball - Lyric

I mean it's clear to me JB was cast for the coordinating hair....


In seriousness, I maintain that for the majority of that video it's all just fine. Until the last bit when I regret having ears. I do struggle with JB to find any charisma but as a poster above said, just because he was poor in MR doesn't mean he can't be good in this.
I'll be optimistic it'll get better (I have to be, I have tickets).

To me, Michael Ball feels like the world’s worst cameo. Lovely chap, but I’ve never EVER understood the hype.

He is like the person that turns up without being invited.

His Javert was offensive.

Can someone please explain the appeal? Genuinely, I need to know.

I’m talking purely professionally here, from a casting point of view. I get that he’s now a ‘star’ name and highly regarded and reliable, but even when he was younger, and starting out — how did he do it? His Marius is laughable. Mind you, so is Colm.

He feels like the MT equivalent of an X Factor contestant. Awful, but he pulls people in.

He is the Iceland of the supermarkets.

Well... Bogyo was laughably wooden when he was a drama student at RADA, and he was very weak in Moulin Rouge, so at this point I would say that the odds are stacked against him delivering a nuanced, detailed and appealing performance in Aspects. 

Well I'm sorry but this is tragic. 

Micheal has sadly mostly lost it - physically and vocally. Basic acting through song. Bad placement, reaching and scooping for notes, unsure head voice, flat at times, liaisons galore (badly connecting words), bad breathing, horrible phrasing, coming off notes early and an awful strained screech of a belt for the end note. He sounds like a semi pro who needs a few singing lessons! Like our wonderful Ruthie Henshaw, they have half the vocal ability they used to have in the 90's and that's what happens to older vocal chords and after 50 years of use. I used to be a big fan of both - it's very sad.

As for Jamie - he might be a decent guy as a person (I don't know him) but as a talent - I've seen and heard better (and more visually appealing) average chorus boys sing better than this. Not the most satisfying vocal timbre to listen too, odd placement, odd mouth shapes, odd presence, no emotional gear changes, sub textual emotional delivery or any hint of a RADA training. Why on earth would any producer cast this way? I'm truly baffled. Who does he appeal to?

Even the orchestra, arrangements and harmonies were FLAT. 

3/10 

WHAT. A. SHAME. 

I would say about Michael Ball is that he's a good all rounder. Not many theatre actors could go into presenting on TV and radio and be successful.

Or, you know, maybe people just don't like his performances. There doesn't have to be an agenda or jumping on a bandwagon.

Disappointing he does that cheesy handover, name checking Jamie mid song! It's not a great way of suggesting the characterisation of the piece is what matters most. Of course 'lifted out of the show' happens a lot before the director's properly got their hands on a show.  Ball almost mimes doing the drums leading into 'the big bit' - oh dear.  That's all the stuff that needs dismantling in the show, not built up.

Hoping Michael Ball is very aware of the tricks and fake-slick moves that go with his gigs with Alfie Boe, and is keen for Jonathan Kent to be on him cutting them out (including vibrato when it's meaningless). Surely the only satisfaction of going back to Aspects Of Love is for people to be impressed by his acting performance - while aware that lots of fans will be there who'll just accept him doing anything whatsoever.

It really is a piece that needs to be cast for acting, including offbeat and unexpected choices. Otherwise I don't see the point of Jonathan Kent on it.

Isn't LCE performed twice in the show? Surely La Ball could do one of the renditions, and the new chap do the other?

LCE is used at the start of act 1 and then act 1&2 closing scenes. Plus endless underscoring. In this new take who knows how it will be used?

Unfortunately it pops up so often and indiscriminately that the audience laughed at one point during the tour that had David Essex in it.  Perhaps it's been revised to be used less since then (I saw it at the Union Theatre since)

I quite like it harmonised in that video.  Perhaps 'dead George' leads it, and others sing it in their isolated time and space  - together.  That could work.  

Maybe they could start the show with George showing up at his own funeral after Che Guevara sings a jaunty version of Love Changes Bugger All to get extra use out of the hit choon. Oh wait, that's been done already by someone. Soz