Michael Ball has returned to the West End after 34 years, reprising his role in the musical Aspects of Love. The show, for which Ball became famous in 1989 with the hit song Love Changes Everything, has been given a revival at the Lyric Theatre in London. Despite his early success, Ball faced a period of anxiety, depression and panic attacks that he failed to discuss at the time: “It’s the worst thing that you can feel on a stage, stood there with people staring at you, and suddenly you feel your world collapsing.”
However, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s visit to an Aspects of Love preview didn’t produce similar feelings of nervousness: “He came up afterwards with tears in his eyes, put his arms around me, and just thanked me and said, ‘the only time I felt this was on the first preview of Phantom’. It really was so unlike him!but we want to make him proud, he’s the boss.”
The musical covers the story of Jenny, who is now 18 and on a path to empowerment rather than awakening sexuality. Michael commented: “It’s weird, isn’t it? This is not something that was ever a feature in 1989, but now it very much is. We have to be sensitive to those issues and change the narrative. It’s important.”
Aspects of Love had a long-term presence in the charts 30 years ago, paving the way for Ball’s success and involvement in other productions such as Les Misérables. However, it was the song Love Changes Everything, composed by Lloyd Webber, that made him a household name and is still a popular tune that he gets asked about in public: “Michael! Does love change everything?! Oh yeah, yeah, yeah!”
Ball wants his London performances to be respectful and would prefer the audience not to join in if they happen to think they can perform the song better than him: “There will be murders,” he joked. “They can’t hit that top note!”
Ball is not alone in his call for courteous theatre going. In April, a performance of The Bodyguard had to be stopped when some audience members sang over the lead during the final song.
Aspects of Love runs at the Lyric until 11 November.
