LOVE NEVER DIES - Can It Be Third Time Lucky?

Whatever else you say about Love Never Dies, you can't accuse it of not evolving. I've seen the show three times now, and not once has the same storyline unfolded. This is, of course, due to the multiple revisions the show has been subject to, and though it took a brief hiatus when the last edit was introduced, I'm still not sure Love Never Dies is a finished work. Let me explain...

When I reviewed the show after its first press night I wondered if Christine returning to the Phantom on the night before her wedding was plausible. Now I've had chance to consider it a little more and observe the adult Christine's behaviour, I think it is. She's indecisive and impressionable, and spent her entire life being manipulated and ordered around by a procession of bossy older men (and Madame Giry, who remains curiously androgynous). It wouldn't surprise me if she doubted the only real decision she ever made - to marry Raoul.

I also criticised the characterisation of the Phantom, and this has been addressed in the latest revamp - he threatens Christine, he muses over kidnap, and perhaps more significantly his relationship with Christine isn't the sweet romance it had been portrayed as previously - now it's much more like that in the original Phantom, where he speaks and she listens; he controls her and how she reacts.

But making the characters more consistent has created another, deeper problem, as far as I'm concerned - the Phantom and Christine aren't in love. He doesn't love her - he's obsessed by her; she doesn't love him - she's fascinated by him. And yes, there is definite physical chemistry - but that's not the same thing. (It's a similar problem to the one I have with Sondheim's Passion, but that's a separate article.)

The ending has been tweaked once more, but, possibly unintentionally, making it marginally more narratively coherent has had the additional impact of increasing the levels of sympathy for Raoul, who was by some margin the most human and understandable character in Love Never Dies in the first place. As the first act unfolds, we see how life (and envy) has warped him (I maintain that he's well aware that Gustave isn't his son before the Phantom viciously and gleefully taunts him about it); as the second act begins, we see that he realises how unhappy he is and how unhappy he has made his wife, and wants to change his ways. All he has to cling on to is the knowledge that Christine loves him and she chose him - and then it becomes apparent that he can't even be sure of that. As he returns with Gustave on the pier, he bids farewell to his wife and the boy he has brought up as his own. Though it is the Phantom's obsession and selfishness that has brought Christine to Coney Island and led her into danger and to her death, he has found someone else to "look with their hearts" and "give the love that he deserves"; Raoul has lost everything.

I will be absolutely fascinated to know whether Love Never Dies is likely to undergo further alterations before it opens elsewhere; I maintain that without this cast the show would struggle (specifically the connection between Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, that fine actor Joseph Millson capturing Raoul's desolation, and Summer Strallen making the most of what must have been a thankless task for her as Meg's character seems to change week by week). Stay tuned for the next instalment...