(seen at the afternoon performance on 17th October 2026)
In those theatre-starved years just after the final insanity ended, there were two highly successful concert seasons at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Love Never Dies was arguably the most lavish production presented.
Three years later, almost the entire creative team and a good chunk of the cast return, this time to the Palladium, for an encore.
Not as extravagant as the Drury Lane original – no lights strung around the auditorium, fewer stage props used, and a slightly smaller staging – but good to have it back.
There are only months in age between Jamie Muscato’s Phantom and Celinde Schoenmaker’s Christine, and the chemistry works.
Muscato’s youthful appearance feels like a magic trick in itself. For everything he has been through, Eric appears unscathed and master of all. He has made his fortune in America, yet lacks the love he still yearns for.
In a performance full of special moments, Muscato simply hits every note – musical and emotional – in every scene. His realisation that Gustave (Elliott Norrington) is his son more than touches. It moves deeply as it sinks in for him, and us observing.
Schoenmaker is familiar with the role, but (as the programme explains) comes to it now as a mother. There is softer detail in the relationship with the real father of her child, a roundness to her vocal choices.
Mazz Murray arrives as Madame Giry. Hardened, increasingly bitter, a black spider dominating the stage whether central or only in the wings.
Repeating her Drury Lane triumph, Courtney Stapleton’s Meg Giry makes the most of her “Bathing Beauty” moment, crushing realisation that she is second-best at most devastating all and explaining very clearly her final desperate actions.
Good to see the old crew of Charles Brunton’s Mr Gangle and Nic Greenshields’s Mr Squelch returning, with Holly James as a highly adaptable Fleck.
Final newcomer, George Blagden as Raoul, is an astonishingly good asset. The uncontrollable drunk is now functional, with a dangerous dignity and intelligence making “Devil Take the Hindmost” a true battle of wits.
Excellent use is made of the Palladium boxes to underline the truth of ‘struggle to the death’ when two flawed men are fighting for a single heart.
Director Sean Kerrison, choreographer Joanna Goodwin (who has shares in Maglite, going by her choices) and musical director Freddie Tapner produce an event Coney Island would be proud to call its own.
For reasons made rather obvious here – the askew emotional balance of the book, with its unlikely disjoints to cover plot holes – it is unlikely a full-scale West End production will ever re-emerge.
The score remains lusher than Andrew Lloyd Webber is ever given credit for, and the lyric is better than serviceable. As an opportunity to keep the flame of this interesting piece alive, it succeeds in ensuring our love for it will not die indeed.
4 stars.