The first major revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical.
Based on David Garnett’s novel of the same name, Aspects of Love tells the story of passion, love and loss across three generations of a family and their companions set against the background of 1940’s France and Italy. Alex Dillingham, a young student travelling through France, falls in love with the alluring actress Rose Vibert. As the pair embark on a passionate affair, the unexpected arrival of Alex’s uncle changes their lives forever. A love story spanning twenty years binding six people and three generations as they come to appreciate that love changes everything.
Aspects Of Love
 |
3.7 (15) |  |
2.0 (1) |
| Venue | Menier Chocolate Factory (click for full venue information) |
General
| Genres | 20th Century • Musical |
| Begins previews | 03 July 2010 |
| Opening | 15 July 2010 |
| Closing / Booking until | 11 September 2010 |
Cast & Creatives
- Author/Writer Charles Hart
- Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lyrics by Don Black
- Choreography Lynne Page
- Director Trevor Nunn
- Lighting design Paul Pyant
Editor reviews
View all editor reviewsAverage editor rating from: 15 user(s)
An Unexpected Joy
| Rating: | 5.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review | If you have any prejudices against Andrew Lloyd Webber "Aspects of Love" will do nothing but confirm them. Even in this pared back form it's still all lush melodies and romantic weepiness. I personally love his stuff to bits however and where recently Webber has stumbled in his choice of libretti ("The Woman in White" and, of course, "Love Never Dies" particular offenders), this is a story of remarkable sincerity. |
| Written by | Rob Walport |
| Full review | http://tttcritic.blogspot.com/2010/08/aspects-of-love.html |
A show to fall in love with
| Rating: | 5.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
Reviewed by pearceglenJuly 25, 2010
Top 10 Reviewer
Comments (0)
View all my reviews
Report this review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
Bigger is not always better. Following the abomination that was Paradise Found, the Menier Chocolate Factory have returned to form and released Aspects Of Love from it’s overblown past production to evolve into a perfectly formed chamber musical. Trevor Nunn returns to direct the work he first premiered back in 1989 .Rather than a major reworking like previous Menier hits La Cage Aux Folles or Sweet Charity, Sir Trevor has gone back to the source material and despite some minor tweaks has concentrated on clarifying the story. Some may be disappointed that this is not radical enough reimagining but what Nunn has managed to do is release the show from the shadow of its famous chart topping number Love Changes Everything and allowed the rest of the lush, romantic score to shine. As love struck English man abroad Alex, Michael Arden is faultless. Moving away from the original belting performance of Michael Ball, this Alex is more reflective, more vulnerable and, while never likeable, is a much more understandable character. Arden sings beautifully and is the perfect foil for the worldlier, more seductive, French actress Rose, played with great emotional intensity by Katherine Kingsley. For those looking for glitz and glamour in their musicals this may not be the show for them, but for those looking for a grown up, intelligent, romantic reclaiming of one of Lloyd Webbers most lavish scores. Although this bears all the hallmarks of following the now established route for Menier shows, lets hope any future West End transfer finds an intimate enough venue to suit this chamber musical. This is an Aspects to certainly fall in love with. |
| Written by | Glen |
| Full review | http://gpearce.blogspot.com/2010/07/aspects-of-love-menier-chocolate.html |
Another hit for London’s brightest factory
| Rating: | 4.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
Although it flopped on Broadway, Aspects of Love had a perfectly respectable premiere run of three years or so — and yet it's not especially cherished among the ALW canon. Both composer and director wanted to give it another whirl, strip it down, pare it back a bit, give it room to breathe naturally in a chamber setting. Has it worked? The answer is a resounding yes. Nunn is often accused of taking far too ponderous an approach to things but here, as if inspired by the show’s wide-eyed protagonist — the young Englishman Alex, who falls in the first instance for an older French actress Rose — he delivers a staging that’s refreshingly frisky. |
| Written by | Dominic Cavendish |
| Full review | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/7894222/Aspects-of-Love-Menier-Chocolate-Factory-London-review.html |
All achieved to an unusually high standard
| Rating: | 5.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
Everyone's out to bed Alex, who resembles Terence Stamp in Pasolini's Teorema. When Stamp finished working his way through all the members of one family, a man at the back of the cinema I was sitting in shouted out, "What about the dog?" It's a testament to Lloyd Webber's music, and to Nunn's nuanced psychological staging, that you don't feel a similar sense of disgust. And Michael Arden, a young Broadway singer making his London debut, even makes Alex sympathetic, if not all that likeable, by the simple expedient of playing him quietly and thoughtfully. He sings beautifully, too. |
| Written by | Michael Coveney |
| Full review | http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/aspects-of-love-menier-chocolate-factory-london-2029639.html |
Works fairly well
| Rating: | 3.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
Returning to 'Aspects of Love' after his original West End staging was deemed overblown in 1989, Trevor Nunn opts for simplicity second time around. For the most part, it works fairly well, albeit without ever really inspiring. Rather than demanding rousing, memorable numbers like the soaring signature Love Changes Everything, the Menier's intimacy allows Lloyd Webber's score its intelligent cartwheel of subtle refrains. Even scaled down and more supple, however, Nunn's production can't overcome the narrative's problems, which is glazed with rose-tinted nostalgia and goes searching for answers towards the end. |
| Written by | Matt Truemman |
| Full review | http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/event/188632/aspects-of-love |
Deadly slow but dreadfully rushed!
| Rating: | 2.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review | The second dud of the year at the Menier I'm afraid. I'm baffled by the 5's (well, not Coveney of course as he has reasons for his 5.....) |
| Written by | Gareth James |
| Full review | http://garethjames.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/aspects-of-love |
At least it's done with the right wistful Anouilhesque elegance
| Rating: | 3.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review | Nunn's production yields a stellar performance from Katherine Kingsley as Rose: not an especially sympathetic character, but one whom Kingsley endows with an intriguing mix of creamy sensuality and driving egotism. Michael Arden as the hapless Alex and Dave Willetts as the sophisticated George are solidly professional rather than wildly exciting, but there is striking support from Rosalie Craig as the bisexual Venetian sculptress who seizes the day and just about everything else available. |
| Written by | Michael Billington |
| Full review | http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jul/16/aspects-of-love-review |
Emotional engagement is hard to summon
| Rating: | 3.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review | This time Nunn doesn’t strike gold – not because of the production, but because the story is so thin. The venue’s size suits the intimacy of the tale; the fluid staging is peppered with lovely touches; the score, reshaped for a seven-strong band, sounds delicate and rich. But the show can’t convince that you have looked into the human heart. |
| Written by | Sarah Hemming |
| Full review | http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e7b914ca-90ef-11df-85a7-00144feab49a.html |
Aspects of love and other sticky situations...
| Rating: | 3.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
Great cast and music let down by a book that takes some potentially interesting characters and trashes them in the second act rather than develops some ideas about their motivations. Given the second act moves so slowly the next best thing to do is to have a good drink at interval and then nod off a bit in the second act. If you wake up in the last 20 minutes you will pick up the story without much trouble. It is hard to work out what the central message of this show is. Maybe it is don't sleep with your uncle's girlfriend. It all gets a bit incestuous and where I come from, the plot could be best described as, "A bit Tasmanian". In fact by the time you get through the second act and have seen our central character, lust after his much younger cousin, and then run off with his uncle's paramour, it seems a shame the show wasn't titled Merrily We Roll Together. All told the show is very watchable, but you do leave feeling like you've been prying on someone's dirty little secret rather than gaining any understanding about the human condition... It runs until 26th. Go see it, but not with your uncle or your cousin... That would be a little... Icky... |
| Written by | Paul in London |
| Full review | http://www.paulinlondon.com/2010/07/theatre-aspects-of-love.html |
Nigh-on miraculous
| Rating: | 5.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review |
There will undoubtedly still be cavilling from some quarters, because Aspects forces us to confront elements that are increasingly alien. For starters we have the through-singing, shaded elegantly here to highlight the big numbers. Above all, there’s the fact that this musical doesn’t shy from being unashamedly romantic and all but drilling a direct and honest emotional response from us. I spent most of the second half in tears, and I’d go back for more in a heartbeat. |
| Written by | Fiona Mountford |
| Full review | http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/review-23856849-a-return-to-glory-for-aspects-of-love.do |
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
To write a review please register or login.
Aspects of The Beast
| Rating: | 2.0 |
Was this review helpful to you?
Reviewed by samlondonJuly 16, 2010
Top 50 Reviewer
Comments (0)
View all my reviews
Report this review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Show Review
| Review | Went to see La Bete the night after this and probably enjoyed it even more as a reuslt -- a show about how mediocrity and crassness can take over theatre and masquerade as offering profound insight. Only impressive thing was realising Andrew Lloyd Webber had bankrolled the original (and failed) Broadway run of La Bete all those years ago. Was it to apologise for AOL? In which case why did anyone thing Aspects was worth reviving? Two stars - only for a talented set of musicians and cast with more Isabella Rossellini lookalikes than I've ever seen in 1 chorus. And 1 question.. what was that uniform Alex turns up in after 12 years? The Malayan branch of the Salvation Army? |
Powered by JReviews
