Three Phantoms (Tour – Newcastle)

Three Phantoms brings together three actors who have all played the iconic role in Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Phantom of the Opera with Rebecca Caine ( who has played Christine, opposite both Michael Crawford and Colm Wilkinson and created the role of Cosette in Les Miserables).

The show allows the performers to tell us some of their memories between performing songs from some of the theatres best loved musicals and comes across as quite an intimate show as they talk to the audience. But it is the talent of the performers that is the key to the whole production, which is simply phenomenal . Simon Bowman has not only played the Phantom, but also Raoul, as well as leads in Les Miserables and created the role of Chris in Miss Saigon. While Earl Carpenter has played Khashoggi in We Will Rock You and Peron in Evita with Rohan Tickell having appeared in Whistle Down The Wind and Mamma Mia.

However the only accompaniment for the singers was Anthony Gabriele (who is the Musical Director of the current Phantom tour) on piano and cellist Yvonne Marie Parsons. While both were excellent, the show did feel to suffer from the lack of an orchestra, which was sad given the talent of the performers.
However given the chance to hear such talented performers should not be missed, but I do wonder how much different it would have sounded with a full orchestral backing.