I have a few questions about the new musical Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of The Opera, I wonder if any of you can help me?
1) If Love Never Dies is set 10 years after the original, and the Phantom Of The Opera took place in 1881, then why does it seem to be about 1907? These dates and numbers don’t add up for me.
2) There was a sequel to the original book by the author who wrote Phantom of The Opera, and that sequel was called “Love Never Dies” but then there was the Frederick Forsyth novel called “The Phantom of Manhattan” Which one is the new musical based on?
3) Andrew Lloyd Webber says in one video that it was Ben Elton who went away and came up with a plot that recycled the orginal characters, but then at the press release he seems to suggest there was a “we” who came up with that idea. Is this new story Ben Elton’s creation or Glenn Slater and ALW’s ?
4) What happened to the simultaneous opening in Singapore? Seems to have been replaced by a vague intention to open Love Never Dies in Australia in 2010 sometime. Australia is not Singapore.
Thanks for any leads or clues.
London Theatre 
October 15, 2009 at 10:37 am
1) If Love Never Dies is set 10 years after the original, and the Phantom Of The Opera took place in 1881, then why does it seem to be about 1907? These dates and numbers donl’t add up for me.
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They don’t add up for anybody. ALW and company don’t care. He wanted to use the Coney Island setting at that time.
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2) There was a sequel to the original book by the author who wrote Phantom of The Opera, and that sequel was called “Love Never Dies” but then there was the Frederick Forsyth novel called “The Phantom of Manhattan” Which one is the new musical based on?
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I never heard of the first one. ALW named the show “Love Never Dies” a few months ago. It is based loosely on Forsyth’s Phantom of Manhattan. For a while, he called “Once Upon Another Time.”
3) Andrew Lloyd Webber says in one video that it was Ben Elton who went away and came up with a plot that recycled the orginal characters, but then at the press release he seems to suggest there was a “we” who came up with that idea. Is this new story Ben Elton’s creation or Glenn Slater and ALW’s ?
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I don’t know, but I would guess that all three have had input to Elton’s story.
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4) What happened to the simultaneous opening in Singapore? Seems to have been replaced by a vague intention to open Love Never Dies in Australia in 2010 sometime. Australia is not Singapore.
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They changed their minds, probably for financial reasons. It would be both difficult and very expensive to open three shows simulaneously. I think ALW was just dreaming big and had to come down to earth.