THEATRE REVIEW: Aspects of Love, Liverpool Empire Theatre

Jun 11 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

Aspects of Love at the Liverpool Empire _320

“THERE must be someone in this room who knows who goes with who”, a character earnestly sings at one point of Aspects of Love.

Sadly, no-one seems any the wiser after more than two hours of partner-swapping, threesomes and cousin-wooing, and no-one’s the better off for it.

The characters, at least. The audience, barely.

It’s an intriguing and ambitious story that looks stunning and is brimming over with high drama, but its operatic pretensions leave it lacking the usual sparkle expected from Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Spanning 20 years, it tells the tale of a core group of friends and relatives who just can’t seem to help falling in love with each other, with heavy consequences for all.

The lengthy production included a Lolita-style romance, lesbian kissing, a topless scene and some frantic up-against-the-wall rutting, which was mostly received with nervous laughter. Dancing cats and grooving Pharaoes this is not.

But some solid performances ensured that it was not just mere titillation.

James Graeme, as the gregarious bon viveur George, made his complex character look deceptively easy to play and it was a joy when he appeared on stage.

So, too, for last-minute understudy Karen Evans as his sultry Italian lover Giulietta, who shone in every scene.

The stage looked amazing, with awesome sets that could change from a dank actresses’s dressing room to a mountain village or street scene at the twirl of a wall.

Lighting, too, excelled in its creativity. Aspects of Love is known for its signature tune, Love Changes Everything, and this transpires to be because it is one of the only traditionally structured numbers it has. Many songs are mainly operatic dialogue to push the convoluted story on. Oddly, the only number with any typical Lloyd Webber fizz takes place at a funeral.