Aspects of Love
Lyric Theatre, London

BUT for the brilliant design elements created by John Macfarlane, this would be something close to a turkey.
 
Only one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s songs passes muster, while delivery of the dialogue in complicated operatic sing-song style adds nothing to the production – in fact subtracts a great deal.  
 
Interest in the plot – about the limitations and contradictions of free love – begins to wane even before the interval; then recedes even further after the curtain rises for the second half.  
 
By the end it’s difficult to care much about who’s doing what to whom and why, so that even a twist-in-the-tale ending leaves one feeling decidedly unmoved.  
 
Holding everything together, though, are McFarlane’s sumptuous stage settings. A mixture of loosely painted backdrops and cinematic projections of 1950s Paris, the French countryside and the canals of Venice, everything he touches creates atmospheric magic.
 
In front of a wonderfully tasteful series of sets, every now and then McFarlane rolls across a moveable cinema screen, showing us rainy Parisian alleyways or starlit nights; suggestions of new landscapes against which the plays goes forward.  
 
Later on he alters the viewing dimensions of the stage via some cinematic trickery that conveys the opening and closing of a camera aperture, adding much needed drama to various scenes.  
 
At another point we suddenly see the previously hidden orchestra lit up above the stage, as it becomes part of the action during one of the more diverting musical interludes.  
 
This is McFarlane’s debut on the West End stage, his first move away from the world of ballet and opera, and so it might, almost, be worth going to see Aspects of Love for McFarlane’s artistry alone. In truth there’s little else to justify the trip.  
 
The cast for this revival is fine – Jamie Bogyo does a nice job of portraying young Alex Dillingham, whose charming, philandering uncle (Michael Ball) steals his woman and his thunder.  
 
But save for the song Seeing is Believing, Lloyd Webber’s compositions from the 1989 original are underwhelming, while the supposed signature tune, the bland Love Changes Everything, is done to death throughout.
 
Add to that the increasing boredom generated by an unconvincing and rather dodgy storyline based on David Garnett’s 1950s novella of the same name, and there are too many weak elements even for the designer and actors to counteract.   
 
Runs until November 11 2023: https://www.aspectsoflove.com