Kelly Price (Rose) and Felix Mosse (Alex) in ASPECTS OF LOVE. © Anthony Robling
Kelly Price and Felix Mosse talk to Frankly My Dear UK about their roles as Rose and Alex in ASPECTS OF LOVE
With five star reviews from The Stage and WhatsonStage, its fair to say that Jonathan O’Boyle’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic ASPECTS OF LOVE is a hit.
Running at Hope Mill Theatre until 9 August, the musical follows English student Alex Dillingham, who while travelling through France in 1947, falls in love with the alluring actress Rose Vibert. The pair embark on a passionate affair until the unexpected arrival of Alex’s Uncle George changes their lives forever.
At an exclusive press event ahead of its opening, Kelly Price and Felix Mosse talk to Lucy Moore from Frankly My Dear UK about their roles as Rose and Alex in the new revival and why they believe ASPECTS OF LOVE is perfect for the intimate setting of Hope Mill Theatre.
Frankly My Dear UK (FMD): LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING is the song that shot Michael Ball to fame. Are you feeling any pressure from that?
Felix: Not at all. What I’ve been saying throughout the process is that people who are familiar with ASPECTS OF LOVE know the score and they love it, but the people who don’t know it, they always know LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING and they know it the way Michael Ball does it, which is very triumphant and exultant. It’s massive and he has this great big band behind him, spurring him on, and the main thing with this production is that it’s just two pianos and a bit of percussion. It’s very intimate, it’s very sentimental and it’s very close to people’s hearts, is what we’re trying to achieve. The version of LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING is very different to the one Michael Ball did. Hopefully it will appeal to people because I know I like to see things done in a totally different way. When I get up and sing it and the style of the show is revealed I think people will really enjoy it because it isn’t trying to be like Michael Ball.
FMD: How has it been translating ASPECTS OF LOVE into more of an intimate setting?
Felix: It will make so much sense to people when they see it. It’s as if it’s all set in one room, it goes to Paris, Venice, the Pyrenees Mountains but it’s all set in one room and so the memories of all these places are strewn across the room, and LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING I think really sets up this journey that everyone’s about to take. When people see it, there’ll be transported to this story we’re going to take them on.
Kelly: It was always meant to be a chamber piece, it was conceived that way, then obviously because it had such big names attached to it they gave it such a huge production. The Menier Chocolate Factory stripped it back down because it makes sense that way. It’s based on a novella, so the characters and the way they relate to one another is a bit more complicated than some musical theatre, so stripping it back and doing it in this intimate environment, you can explore all that.
FMD: Do you relate to your characters at all?
Felix: Alex is a little more dramatic than I am, which might be a kind way of describing it! There are so many aspects of love in the show, as it says on the tin, so everyone who sees it will come away thinking “I have felt that”, whether it’s familial love, passionate, dark or hard to understand, but it’s not alienating, no one’s going to watch these characters onstage and think “I’ve never felt this.” I don’t relate to my character and the actions he commits, but everyone can relate to certain parts of all of these characters because everyone’s felt love in a different way at some point.
Kelly: Well I do. Obviously, I’m not very like her, she’s a French actress in the 1940’s and we see her through to the 1960’s, and her temperament is very different to mine, but I relate to the passion and the fire and the desire she experiences. She has these two loves in her life but also she has her art and she loves her job as an actress and having that as a love in your life and the choices that can lead you to make, having to balance love and creativity in testing times sometimes. She also experiences loneliness, as do I but who doesn’t? As Felix said, it’s so relatable, everyone has some sort of love in their life, and the shows so full of heart, so if you don’t relate to anything-
Felix: then you’re dead inside! It’s just this rollercoaster, it doesn’t stop. Act one goes and goes and goes, and it examines what happens when someone loves what they do just as much as the people around them, and what happens when people love only people, does it consume you, to have nothing else to let it out on? When you start a family, how does that love translate to other people, it’s great! Obviously, we don’t know until we put it in front of an audience whether it is great, but it feels good right now!
Kelly: And it’s just like LOVE ISLAND! What I’m trying to say is that people are obsessed with watching people connect, fall in love, get it on, and then also fall out of love and someone else comes along. That’s kind of what happens in the show, not to give the story away. I don’t like LOVE ISLAND but I love FIRST DATES, we love that kind of stuff!
ASPECTS OF LOVE runs at Hope Mill Theatre until 9 August 2018.
Lucy is a nineteen-year-old aspiring actress from Glossop. She is currently studying Music Theatre at the University Of Central Lancashire and hopes to move onto a career in performance. She also has interests in reading, writing and music.
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