Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies’ Phantom Ramin Karimloo confirmed his performance schedule in the show for after  the cast change on 5th March.

Ramin extended his contract for six months until 3rd September 2011, but he has a new reduced new performance schedule playing the role of Phantom in Love Never Dies London for six shows a week,  probably with Mondays and Thursdays off.

Ramin also mentioned a record deal and some show dates for his group the Sheytoons.  If you’re lucky enough to have seen them perform you’ll know they are great songwriters.

From the 5th March 2011, Love Never Dies gets a new Raoul in the form of David Thaxton taking over the role from Joseph Millsom.

David Thaxton

Sierra Boggess is also leaving the cast, to head for Broadway where the former Christine will star in Master Class with Tyne Daly.

The role of Christine in Love Never Dies will be taken over by the current Christine’s understudy, Celia Graham.

Other changes are that Celia Graham (who is currently Christine’s understudy) will take over the role from Sierra Boggess who is heading to Broadway to star in Master Class with Tyne Daly.

Ramin Karimloo stays on as The Phantom extending his contract for an undsiclosed period, but he’ll be one of the few Love Never Dies originators since Summer Strallen  is also leaving to go on a tour of Top Hat the Musical with Tom Chambers.

Haley Flaherty (Rocky Horror Show, Mamma Mia, Follies, Grease, Chicago, Saturday Night Fever) is taking over as the new Meg Giry.

Ramin Karimloo (the Phantom) and Sierra Boggess (Christine) will be starring in a concert on Friday Night is Music Night broadcast on Friday 17th December on BBC Radio 2 from 8:00pm-10:00pm.

If you miss it on the night and you are a UK resident don;t worry because you will be able to log in to the BBC Radio “Listen again” service, the iPLayer – a link to the exact show will be provided here later.

Ramin and Sierra from Love Never Dies sing a selection of music about the masked men of stage and screen with a programme that includes songs from Robin Hood, William Tell, The Masked Ball, Batman and Spiderman.

Andrew Lloyd Webber gets to introduce the pieces from his own shows including The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies with Ramin and Sierra accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Simon Lee.

The Sheytoons are an indie folk rock band with Ramin Karimloo from Love Never Dies and Hadley Fraser from Les Miserables.

Another great set of photographs by Estefania y Arantxa Álvarez, this time of Ramin Karimloo who plays the Phantom in Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre in London.

We have some free tickets for Love Never Dies to give to you as a prize!

Are you free on Saturday night, 9th October? If so you can enter the competition here on the Love Never Dies blog and stand a very good chance of winning a pair of top price tickets for the Saturday Night performance at the Adelphi Theatre on London, with Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess – I’ve seen it and it’s by far the best show in London for the present, with beautiful music, spectacle, and set design. You’ll love it whether you’ve already seen Phantom of The Opera or not, makes no difference.

The top price tickets to this hugely popular musical theatre show have been kindly provided by TheatreBreaks.com

To enter the competition all you have to do is leave a comment here on this blog, saying why you’d like to see Love Never Dies on Saturday. You can post it either on this competition post below, or anywhere else on the blog within the next 23 hours starting from now, Friday 8th October at midday.

At 11.00am on Saturday, tomorrow, the day of the show, the winner will be chosen, notified by email by Saturday afternoon and two Love Never Dies tickets will be arranged to be collected from the box office with the lucky winners’ names on them!

Ramin Karinloo: Phantom has Asperger’s

According to an interview published in the Telegraph last month, Ramin Karimloo star of The Phantom of The Opera and Love Never Dies said he believed the Phantom showed clear signs of the condition known as Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a form of autism. Sufferers often have difficulties with communication and social relationships.

According to Ramin Karimloo, who joined the London production of Phantom of The Opera two years ago, the autistic spectrum and asperger’s in particular could explain the Phantom’s eccentric traits, his musical genius and his difficulty with social interactions which led him to hide away beneath the Paris Opera House for all those years.

It’s an interesting theory, which could also help to bring better public understanding of the increasing common condition of autistic spectrum symptoms but it seems to me that Ramin Karimloo is completely ignoring the effect of the Phantom’s facial disfigurement and hence the mask in the story which is set two centuries ago. But never mind,

“I saw a documentary on Asperger’s syndrome and it made a lot of sense to me,”

said Karimloo.

Ramin Karimloo was born in Iran and has been central to the launch of Love Never Dies, the long awaited Phantom story continuation which Andrew Lloyd Webber says “is not a sequel”

Love Never Dies with Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess opens in London in March 2010 at the Adelphi Theatre, and then later around the world.