Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Aspects of Love was first performed in 1989 and is based on a second-rate novel by David Garnett, published in 1955. The deficiencies of the novel could fill a column – and that’s before you even get started on the musical and its plodding score. I had low expectations as I trudged along Shaftesbury Avenue towards the theatre, but now find myself with the unexpected pleasure of having to report that I should have approached the first night with a more open mind. For this is a spectacular production – everything I assumed it would not, could not be. So much talent has been lobbed at it that it overrides the musical’s many and varied faults.
Jonathan Kent directs with sure-footed flair, the cast is top-notch, and the recruiting of opera designer John Macfarlane is a masterstroke. His design is a romance in itself. It’s like going on a grand tour of Europe, stopping off at airy Parisian apartments, travelling through painterly French landscapes and overlooking glowing Venetian canals – no one with the slightest trace of wanderlust could possibly resist his gloriously escapist vision. And at the same time, Douglas O’Connell’s original use of photographic imagery turns what ought to be hackneyed scenes – such as a black-and white Parisian street in the rain – into elegant panels, contributing to the set’s multilayered magic.
