What Went Wrong With Love Never Dies?

Now, Love Never Dies has been a subject of infamy for the musical theatre world and Andrew Lloyd Webber's long list of musicals. I despise the show myself, but its history has somewhat fascinated me. How could a sequel to ever come to exist? Why did Andrew think a follow-up do any service for people? In fact, I have a much bigger question for this post? Why did it become a massive failure? To get to that, I think it's best to look at the show's history from the small idea to the bomb it became, which is a thousand times more interesting than the final product.

Let's go back to 1990. With Phantom's worldwide success destined to make it a classic, the first was composer Andrew Lloyd Webber talking with costume designer Marie Bjornson. He got the idea that the sequel would take place in 20th century New York, at first in Manhattan before changing it to Coney Island after watching a documentary about its freak shows and carnivals, which he thought would make the Phantom's perfect playground. The first glimpse we got of Love Never Dies was through the song "A Heart is Slow to Learn," sung by Kiri Te Tanawa at Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. Gradually, the song became "Our Kind of Love" for the 2002 musical The Beautiful Game, which he worked on with Ben Elton (who's best known for writing We Will Rock You, Blackadder and left-wing parody comedy sketches). If you don't believe me about the melodies being identical to Love Never Dies, then feel free to listen to both clips below. I think it's safe to say it's like Disney's bizarre tendency to recycle animation in their 70's movies.

When coming up with the story in the 90's, Webber collaborated with author and journalist Frederick Forsyth. However, Andrew soon realized the material they came up with wouldn't translate well onstage. Deciding to leave the Phantom sequel on the back burner, Forsyth eventually published a book version called The Phantom of Manhattan in 1999. I've never read it, nor do I intend on reading it, but I think it's safe to say the guy who was a former spy and wrote thriller novels wasn't the best person to collaborate with for a romantic stage musical. Despite the fallout, Forsyth was still credited as one of the show's writers when it opened.

As the years went on and moved onto other projects, Andrew decided to return to the Phantom sequel in 2006, working with numerous writers and directors who couldn't help him with translating the material onstage (sound familiar?). He was finally approached by Ben Elton in 2007, where they decided to focus on the original characters instead of the new ones created for The Phantom of Manhattan. When looking for a lyricist, that wasn't as easy as you'd expect. Approaching Glenn Slater (best known for his collaborations with Alan Menken including Home on the Range, Tangled and the Broadway adaptation of The Little Mermaid), he at first wasn't convinced. In fact, he called it a terrible idea. However, Slater but still decided to work with him and come up with the clumsiest lyrics ever.

Despite the plans to move forward in 2007, production was delayed. Why?  Andrew's cat accidentally deleted all of the music which he was halfway through finishing. Trying to compose from memory, even Andrew admitted he didn't believe he got all of it right. Given that some of it was recycled from the aggressively mediocre The Woman in White (believe me, the 2017 London revival I saw had no changes except for the improved visuals and ending where a heartbroken Marion has a grave erected for Anna), the aforementioned Beautiful Game and the 2004 Joel Schumacher film adaptation, it's safe to say Webber's streak of recycling music from previous shows hadn't changed. And as evidenced by the number of cut songs featured in the original cast recording, he clearly didn't know when enough was enough.

The first actual glimpse of Love Never Dies (then titled Phantom: Once Upon Another Time) was in 2008 during Andrew's annual Sydmonton festival, with Ramin Karimloo (who gained notoriety for his portrayal of The Phantom in the original show at the time) as The Phantom and Alistair Robbins as Raoul. The official announcement came during his 60th Birthday in the Park celebration, where he revealed the show was retitled Love Never Dies. A press conference followed at Her Majesty's Theatre in 2009, announcing the leads Sierra Boggess (who played the role in the Las Vegas Spectacular production) as Christine and the aforementioned Ramin Karimloo, featuring previews of the title song, Til I Hear You Sing and The Coney Island Waltz.

However, even the rehearsals and lead-up weren't without their problems. Various issues caused delays and tension for everyone including orchestration issues, Andrew being threatened a £20,000 fine for illegally painting the Adelphi Theatre black, re-recording the soundtrack, replacing actors (including Hadley Fraser as Raoul, which explains why played the role in Phantom's 25th Anniversary performance) and technical difficulties with the animatronics, it's safe to say the production on top of the development hell was The Room levels of a nightmare. In fact, it got so bad that it nearly caused Tony winning lighting designer Paule Constable to quit theatre work for good.

So with everything turning into a huge disaster behind the scenes, the show officially opened on  March 9th 2010 after two weeks of  previews starring the aforementioned Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess alongside Summer Strallen as Meg Giry, Liz Robertson as Madame Giry and Joseph Miller and Raoul, and...

The show was immediately panned from fans and critics, where despite strong acting from Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess (to the point they'd mercifully reprise their roles for Phantom's 25th anniversary concert), they couldn't make up for the clunky story on par with bad fanfiction, uninspired production design, music that didn't hold a candle to the original, and characters so unlikable that it made Lestat look like the Citizen Kane of musicals. Not only were the planned Broadway and Shanghai productions "indefinitely postponed," but Lloyd Webber closed the show for three days to rework the script with Phantom lyricist Charles Hart and choreographer Bill Dreamer. Rumours surfaced that the ending would be changed after backlash, but reopened again in December with invitation for critics. It was better received, but not by a long stretch. It finally closed on August 27th 2011 due to poor box office despite constant ticket discounts (including free for children. Yes the show with alcoholism, adulterous sex resulting in a child and prostitution allowed children). Believe me, even the performances (yes that was a plural, mostly because of Ramin who was literally the only thing worth watching this mess of a musical) I went to were uncomfortably empty and the changes did nothing to improve it. Andrew stated while he was proud of this production, he admitted it didn't completely work and that "something just went slightly wrong; I had cancer just before the production, and it was just that crucial 5% off-beam".

So after that disaster, you'd think that would be the end of Love Never Dies and Andrew Lloyd Webber would move on to his next projects, right?

An Australian production opened in Melbourne on May 21st 2011 with a vastly retooled set design and further script rewrites, this time directed by Simon Phillips. Responding to the negative feedback, he believed it was due to the fandom's anger at the musical not being literary, and that Andrew was making a sequel to the original novel...except the original musical made significant changes from the novel that are explicitly referenced in this, and Love Never Dies has several musical & narrative callbacks to the Phantom which immediately makes that remark invalidated! Starring Anna O'Byrne, Ben Lewis, Simon Gleeson and Sharon Millerchip, it received better reception than the London production to the point that it was filmed and released on DVD in 2012. However, it was still a financial disappointment and closed in December that same year, transferring to Sydney in January 2012 and closing there three months later. Andrew stated this was the production he was most proud of, and the same incarnation later opened in Tokyo in 2014 and Hamburg starring Gardar Thor Cortes in 2015 with further lyrical rewrites.

So now that the definitive version of Love Never Dies was made, it's not like the show needed reworking again, right?

Another retooled production opened in Copenhagen in October 2012 and lasted until April 2013. Not long after, a concert production was held in Vienna in October 2013 starring Drew Sarich as The Phantom & Millica Jovanovic as Christine. So now living in infamy with Phans, audiences and critics and fading into obscurity, this when Love Never Dies finally dies, right?

Fast forward to 2016 when a US Tour that nobody asked for was announced and opened in New York 2017 with the same production design as the Australian version & rewrites as the Hamburg production. Unsurprisingly, the show bombed critically and financially, but Webber still expressed hopes of a limited Broadway run. Announced a return to the UK with a tour which would feature the retooling. but was delated due to the COVID-19 pandemic (as is pretty much every show at the moment).

Now that we've gone through the trainwreck of a musical from idea to stage show, we can go into when and why did it fail? Was it when his cat deleted the music? Nope. Because the score still would've been hacked and recycled. Was it when Andrew refused to listen to Glenn Slater's doubts? Partly, except Slater still got involved with the show. Was it when all the collaboration with Frederick Forsyth fell through? Not really, because his book is still credited as the basis for the show. Was it because of the production issues? Hmm...kinda! All of these contribute to the show's failure, but I have a three main reasons why this show failed.

One is the timing. Keep in mind that Phantom was only open for four years when the idea of a sequel was conceived, and Love Never Dies opened one year short of its twenty-fifth anniversary. Someone's creativity is guaranteed to change in such a long time, and given what Webber did within that time span with his TV talent shows, increasingly mediocre stage projects and bout of cancer, that amount of stress couldn't help but have an affect on the finished product. Also, given that Phantom's legendary status grew over time compared to the late smash hit it was when Love Never Dies was conceived, a sequel just felt unnecessary and redundant (not to mention ruined the ambiguity of the ending by revealing that the Phantom and Christine became terrible people within ten years). It doesn't really help that despite being around for a decade as of 2020, not one production has lasted longer than eighteen months. The lack of longevity compared to its massively succesful predecessor highlights the lack of interest the audience had on top of the bad reviews it received.

Second, the fanbase (at least certain portions). Because a number of Phantom/Christine shippers tended to romanticize the Phantom and focus on his seductiveness and tragic backstory, they seemed to forget his arc in the show was not to kill people, force a woman to marry him against her will and terrorize everyone with his childish demands. Because of this, it felt like the story had to cater towards them shippers by turning it into a fix-it-fic, otherwise it would be a flop. Backfiring horribly, the fans still cried foul play on the script once it was revealed to the point that there were blogs devoted to hating on the show (notably Paint Never Dries and Love Should Die). It got so bad that Andrew tried to shed the blame the show's failure onto them instead of admitting Love Never Dies was objectively a terrible show. While I think there was blood boiled on both sides and was blown out of proportion, the haters ironically gave Love Never Dies the attention it didn't want because it meant (the few) people wanted to see if it just as bad as they said it was (something Netflix seems to have taken advantage of in its programming lately).


Third, the creative team (of which there's thousands). Because Andrew was the only person involved with the original and sequel until Charles Hart came in for the rewrites, none of his collaborators could help him agree on a single vision for the show. With his tendency to be perfectionist from the score to the visuals, it doesn't really help that none of the writing team, were suited for the stage work, let alone a romantic gothic musical that was a follow-up to arguably his greatest work. It's honestly not hard to see why there have been so many incarnations, and they feel like they've been ways to make up for the terrible writing no matter how many times they try to convince us it's worth reviving over and over again. The worst part about these rewrites is they're all surface level. When you look at the bigger picture, every production has identical story beats and that's because of Webber's refusal to change. Smoke and mirrors aren't going to nor constantly mining in on the nostalgia of its original is just remind people of how much better it is. The most egrgious being the musical cues including the latest incarnation featuring the vocal riff from The Phantom of the Opera song which is what causes the Phantom to suspect he's Gustave's father alongside pl(so long 'TEN YEARS OOOOOOOOOLD!') as it's a piece of music only he & Christine know & Gustave claims never heard it from anyone else. Apparently music is a genetic trait. Further tensions and production problems being highlighted in the media couldn't help but have a negative light on the show, no matter how much everyone tried rationalizing it. And given how rushed the story felt with its plot holes, filler musical numbers and continuity problems, it's pretty clear nobody took Andrew to the side to tell him there's a reason why any form of writing has things called cutting, editing and feedback.


So with everything said and done, now we have the real question: How do you make a worthy sequel to a classic book and musical? Well, that's actually simple:

Walking On Sunshine

Well, given that Mammia Mia 2 is taking the world by storm, why not review the crappy rip-off to its predecessor? Released back in 2014, this came right out of nowhere until I saw the trailer in cinemas where everybody and their mum rolled their eyes over its shameless to copy despite the six year time gap. Directed by Max Giwa and responsible for British Step Up knock-off StreetDance 3D (because everything was 3D at the time), can this bring the same campy charm as Mamma Mia, or does it deserve to fade into obscurity like the Asylum movies?

The story follows book shy Taylor (Hannah Arterton) reuniting with her wilder sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey) in Puglia, Italy after graduating university. Discovering that Maddie's marrying her old summer fling Raf (Giulio Berruti), she decides to hide the relationship for her sister's sake  despite obvious chemistry still lingering between them. Meanwhile, Maddie has to put up with her ex Doug's (Greg Wise) advances while friends Elena, Enrico, Mikey and Lil try hiding Taylor and Raf's relationship leading up to the wedding. Oh and it has an 80s soundtrack, did I forget to mention that?

I'd rather not discuss the "similarities" with Mamma Mia when critiquing the plot because they speak for themselves. What little there is of the plot outside of the musical it desperately wants to emulate is ill conceived and tiresome. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for rom-coms involving weddings, but the ones I enjoy have heart, characters worth rooting for and believable romances with pacing and chemistry. This on the other hand feels more like the writers had a jar of cliches to pick out of, but decided to smash them all into a blender out of obligation rather than logic or reason. Most notably of this is the set-up of Taylor and Raf still having feelings for each other despite being engaged to Maddie. Already ridiculous and contrived, it also fails because we know nothing about their relationship nor why they ever bothered contracting each other despite perfectly viable ways in today's technologically mad society. And considering the unfortunate implications, it With emotional scenes feeling more manipulative, the sisterly bond which should have been the focus also feels unconvincing and is hardly touched upon because of the subplots we don't care for vying for attention.. Ranging from bland to downright creepy (which I'll elaborate on in a minute), it's safe to say that the

While anywhere in Italy is beautiful to watch, the uninspired directing and low budget costumes ruin the experience of. With obnoxious lens flare during Raf and Taylor's romance on the beach in the opening, I was expecting them to break into Summer Nights while cross cutting between Taylor at university and Raf in Puglia. The dance sequences don't help either because they're filmed so flatly and feel as robotic and arbitrary as the story. They don't have a function in giving the characters a chance to express themselves, and it's so distracting when you see the background extras getting ready to boogie the night away, that they make mall flash mobs look more sporadic. The Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go dance party ending is especially horrible as it makes the dance party ending in From Justin to Kelly look like the dance numbers from the 2016 Half a Sixpence revival (I know, an oddly specific comparative, but the choreography was some of the best I'd ever seen and needed to give it a shout out because I've always been bitter over its Olivier snubs and early closure) and doesn't really help wrap the story up.

I, like possibly everyone else, have the same question regarding the soundtrack: Why is it 80s hits? I have no clue other than there wasn't another pop group from the past 30 years with appropriate songs to fit the story or characters! While Mamma Mia had a few songs with narrative function, none of them in Walking on Sunshine connect to the plot or segue properly to the point that you could take them all out and nothing would change. Some confusing numbers include Venus after Taylor and Lil compare Maddie to a goddess, Faith when Doug sneaks into a drunk Maddie's bedroom trying to sex her up after her hen do (not creepy or rapey at all), The Bangles' Eternal Flame as Taylor ogles Raf while on the beach, If I Could Turn Back Time during the climax despite relationship qualifying as "true love" and Maddie shipping immediately after calling off the wedding (Christ, I don't care about revealing spoilers over immediately and the titular song during a tomato throwing festival (which takes place in Spain, not Italy) as Raf and Taylor snipe at each other over their relationship. With every cliched 80s hit you could think of, the awful singing doesn't exactly want to to make you sing along when everyone sounds like they're doing it drunkenly in a karaoke bar.

I probably would've been forgiving if the movie had a likeable cast to bring some charm, campiness and self awareness to the stock story and characters, but it doesn't even have that. Everybody is the Aldi equivalent of other high profile actors with terrible singing to boot. Hannah Arterton as Soph-I mean Taylor, has no personality other than sniping at Raf and supporting her sister with mediocre singing to match her blandness. While Maddie has a bit more personality with her sporadic decision to marry Raf after five weeks (who the hell does that?), her lack of development until her last minute decision to not get married because she realized she went to Italy to "find herself" comes right out of nowhere and doesn't match her character besides being the best way to resolve the love triangle to avoid any hard feelings with Taylor. Raf is just a very sexy and well chiseled blank slate we know nothing about and feels more like an object for the audience to ogle. However, the worst of them has to be Greg Wise as Doug. Despite attempting to emulate Pierce Brosnan, he comes across as a creepy douchebag while pursuing Maddie, which begs the question how did she put up with him for five seconds, let alone five years? The rest of the cast are just useless best friend stereotypes who are terrible liars to Maddie despite her obliviousness. The closest to star power among the friends (and the entire movie) is X Factor winner Leona Lewis as Elaina, who has the best singing from the cast, but her acting doesn't have much to be desired and has a pregnancy subplot that is quickly forgotten until the very end. Behind her would be comedienne Katy Brand as Lil, who does nothing but to be a Rebel Wilson knock-off and make sex jokes because of her job as an erotic fiction writer (and hopefully not friends with EL James).

Walking on Sunshine is such a shameless attempt to Mamma Mia, it hinges on being so bad it's good because of its laughable attempts at being on par with its  namesake. A bargain bin version in every aspect with a tone deaf cast in acting, singing and dimensionality, a cliched plot even by rom com standards and uninspired musical numbers, they can't bring the charm and campiness to. With, this movie is a complete waste of time unless you're looking for something to laugh at with your friends.

Rating: * 1/2