Love Story

Synopsis

‘What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me.’ Inspired by Erich Segal’s best-selling iconic novel, this is a brand new musical version of Love Story, also one of the most romantic films of all time. Oliver Barrett IV went to Harvard and Jenny Cavilleri to Radcliffe. He was rich, she was poor. He was sporty, she played music. But they fell in love. This is their story. Their romance is as poignant as it is enriching, as sweet as it is intense. Love Story will win your heart. And it might just break it.

Our Review:

7 December 2010

Should I feel bad about not sobbing my heart out at Howard Goodall’s elegant musical version – to book and lyrics by Stephen Clark – of Erich Segal’s Love Story? Several people around me were, hopefully for the right reasons. It’s certainly a hammer blow when Emma Williams' Jenny gets her death sentence, even if you know that it’s coming.

But her “preppy hockey jock” husband Oliver (a rather too willowy Michael Xavier) has denied her the most important part of her life, her music, and he’s a character hard not to dislike intensely. I’m not sure that, in tampering – or in not tampering enough -- with the famous 1970 movie, the adapters haven’t drained it of tragic validity. It’s still just a weepie.

Goodall’s music, though, is always interesting, often beautiful, especially at the moment when Jenny (the truly scrumptious Williams is maturing impressively beyond Chitty ...