Webber Confirms Boggess and Karimloo in LOVE NEVER DIES — Page 3

Oh, for heaven's sake, I am never not polite. A liitle scathing perhaps, but only when merited. I just don't agree with (and find rather repugnant) the prevalent lack of objectivity and general negativity. It not just in this case either. I don't like it in principle. Intolerance and prejudice isn't something that should be acceptable in any arena. But a voice of reason (and that is all I am) isn't welcome, apparently, when the other is the preference.

I have no objection to a bit of healthy scepticism, that isn't unreasonable, but the other is!

Updated On: 7/6/09 at 06:44 AM

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have heard some of the score. Very few, if any, have heard the COMPLETE score as ALW has envisioned it - a lush, epicly grand scale required no doubt. I haven't and I'd be suprised if the director himself had. Those who have heard some, any... what those people have heard is generally an amazingly romantic but modern sounding theatre score with definite touchs of rock and opera to a much more extensive extent than the original.

No disco beats here, that's for damn sure.

No more need be known until ALW decides it need be known and I repeat: prepare your grains of salt for your chapeau au beurre.

P

P.S. The musical is no longer based on any of Forsyth's work, in particular the novel THE PHANTOM IN MANHATTAN - that project began (and ended) ten years ago with ALW, Forsyth and Don Black, the latter two no longer involved in any capacity here ("The Heart is Slow To Learn" lyric is gone as well, apparently). This project is ALW and Glenn Slater with the book being hashed out as we speak by them and O'Brien as far as I know.

Updated On: 7/6/09 at 07:35 PM

Phantom 2: The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Pgenre, you might well be right that the sequel no longer has anything to do with Forsyth's book (other than the setting), but you are wrong that the collaboration was over ten years ago.

ALW announced on his own site in, I think, 2007, that he was talking with his friend Freddie about the story for the show, and Forsyth went to work on a plot line. Apparently ALW didn't like what he did because Forsyth didn't last long and was replaced by Ben Elton, who said in an article that he write a four page plot synopsis over a weekend. The rest of what has been written is, as you say, ALW, Slater, and O'Brien.

I assume that it will be quite a while before we know for sure, but I am very curious about how much if anything from the Phantom of Manhattan makes its way into the musical.

Although I don't like the whole idea of a sequel, the music sounds interesting. I can't think of an ALW score that I don't like other than Starlight Express.

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"Phantom 2: The New Adventures of Old Christine."

SNORT!!