Bournemouth Pavilion – 29 April 2023
5*****
It’s always nice to return to a familiar show, be it with a different cast, different venue or just given time to develop from the first visit to the next. Having not seen The Three Phantoms since before Covid, this was an old friend I was looking forward to seeing – with the added bonus of a trip to Bournemouth too.
Earl Carpenter, fresh from playing the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, produces The Three Phantoms but he gives time over to the other performers quite generously.
Joining Earl on this performance was Richard Woodford and Jeremy Secomb, all three stalwarts of POTO and all three had played Javert in Les Mis. Joining the three were two Christines – Olivia Brereton and Celia Graham. And conducting the magnificent Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra was the very bouncy Maestro Anthony Gabriele.
But what of this old friend? Well it had a very successful makeover, still terrible jokes, but some excellent new songs to show the range and vocal quality of the excellent singers. From Moulin Rouge to Young Frankenstein; Flight to Jekyll and Hyde. We got fun anecdotes and all of the performers seemed to be having as good a time performing for us as we were watching. And proving he is a man of many talents, Earl even conducted the orchestra successfully too
I can constantly hope for The Three Phantoms to tour, but until then I’ll content myself with the superb performance I watched last night and hope for another date to be announced soon