An Aspect of a Review

Until this point I have noticed that my submission of reviews have been quite sparse and not too present among all of my posts so far. Until now, that is...

As a self-confessed fan of Lloyd-Webber's musicals, the challenge was overcoming the preconception of his music all being brilliant and beyond contempt. However, I think I have managed to surprise myself in this context. See what you think from my latest piece in my Non-Fiction module...

An Aspect of Change

Album: Aspects of Love: Original Cast Recording                                                                                                                     

Composer: Andrew Lloyd-Webber                                                                                                 

Lyrics By: Charles Hart and Don Black                                           

First Released In: September 1989

Cast: Rose Vibert (Ann Crumb), Alex Dillingham (Michael Ball), George Dillingham (Kevin Colson), Giulietta Trapani (Kathleen Rowe McAllen), Marcel Richard (Paul Bently), Jenny Dillingham (Diana Morrison), Hugo Le Menier (David Greer), A Circus Chanteuse (Sally Smith)

There are, I suppose what myself and many others would like to believe, are the many faces of Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber. There’s the masterfully talented musician Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who composed the likes of his beautiful Requiem for the memory of his father’s passing in 1982. In addition, there exists a Lloyd-Webber who brings music for the masses and whose easy-to-comprehend musicals have become a sort of an Everyman’s Poetry. Finally, we have greedy Lloyd-Webber, who pilfers and profits from other people’s efforts and has degraded the high culture of the theatre to a jaunty Saturday excursion in his free for all treats (at a price, naturally). Basically, he’s the old cliché of marmite for those at the lower end of the social spectrum. Directed by Lloyd-Webber favourite, Trevor Nunn, it concluded the high-flying spectacle era of 1980s musicals with this lukewarm piece mentioned above. However, this piece shows promise of a matured and less ostentatious composer, which whilst being underwhelming in its content to an extent, it fulfils a subtlety and grown-up attitude which was to shape the long term destiny of the more ‘human’ musical.

“Love, Love changes everything”, or so as our hero of the day Alex (Michael Ball) open the show in the specular fashion which became a smash-hit in its own right in the day. To be frank, I do not have a great deal of time for Mr. Ball and his crooner style for the golden oldies. He’s a bit like Patti LuPone or the John Barrowman category of singers. Nice voices, but leaves you a bit cold inside. The story for certain, as you listen (as I did) or watch it, is uncomfortably comforting. This in many ways should not be the case: blatant cradle snatching, interchanging relationships in ONE family and even a bit of lesbianism to put the cherry on the icing. To summarise: young man falls in love with woman, woman falls in love with uncle, the man seduced woman and woman eventually marries uncle. And so the twisted intrigue goes on. As George (Kevin Colson) sings in a disturbing serenade to his own daughter Jenny (Diana Morrison) “You do things champagne could never do”. Though it must be complemented for Lloyd-Webber’s masterful style of the whimsical and melodic composition one feels themselves thinking “Just like a nice bouquet of flowers. So romantic”, instead of the gut-wrenching vomit, if left to a more abrasive composer. As one other example, there’s the return of Alex from his service in the army and his ‘love’, Rose (Ann Crumb), has now crossed over to the side of his uncle, declaring “I really love George”, moments before his devious nephew has charmed his way again into their marital bedroom minutes later. Indeed, “Seeing is Believing”, and fidelity and convention is not seen in this less than child-friendly curate’s egg.

If one can just put aside the seduction of the fifteen-year old cousin, pretty sentimental first half (“I hate to spoil your fun, But I was dying for a gin”) and too consistent pace of storytelling, it is a glimpse into another reality which for once does fit the adage “Life is like a stage”. Young people do love their elders more ways than out of sheer pity, love, like a “cancer”, and only seeks to make these characters’ lives a misery. It may not be Phantom of the Opera or Starlight Express, but there was a glimmer of a trend for the adult audience to appreciate life as sung in the most cheerful way possible. It might be something out of nothing, but if economic mitigation had not occurred the way they did so in the 1990s, there might just have been an opportunity for such a trend to continue. As it was, my generation was born into the superficial tribute concerts of the likes of Mama Mia etc. The last track ‘Anything But Lonely’, a moving finish to all what was lost by the main characters is ironic in the sense this musical became an oddity and an outcast from its fellow extravaganzas. It is instead a cross between both the first and second styles of Lloyd-Webber we know, and that is a fatal concoction in itself. It might be a bit dull sometimes, but I believe Aspects has a quiet dignity which was not revived until the likes of Lloyd-Webber’s The Woman in White. If nobody has yet heard of the show, don’t be shocked. The adult musical was dead as a dodo before it began. Aspects closed on its original run on Broadway with the distinction of being one of the biggest musical flops in history.