Love Never Dies DVD a smash hit in UK charts

On Monday March 12, the DVD of Love Never Dies – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest blockbuster musical – was released in the United Kingdom, causing a flurry of excitement.

The Really Useful Group’s website reported today that the DVD, which stars the current Australian cast, has hit the top spot in the midweek UK Music DVD charts just days after its release.

The DVD has also ranked number 4 in the overall UK midweek DVD charts, pulling up just behind new DVD releases The Twilight Saga at number1, The Help (number 2) and Jane Eyre (number 3), making the musical the highest charting non-film release in the UK’s top 200 midweek charts.

This Australian production of Love Never Dies – described by Andrew Lloyd Webber as “one of the finest productions I’ve ever seen of my work, anywhere” – was screened over 900 times in cinemas across the United States earlier this month, with an equally positive response.

“The filming of our show was a landmark in Australian film and theatre: the first Australian production of a musical to be filmed for world wide release”, Tim McFarlane, Managing Director of The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific and Producer of the current production said recently.

“I was thrilled with the result. When I saw what the camera has captured close up, the drama of this now classic love story, the continuing story of the Phantom and Christine, I was sure it would be embraced world wide.”

It seems McFarlane’s prediction has come to fruition, with Ben Lewis as The Phantom and Anna O’Byrne as Christine set to become household names when the film is broadcast in Canadian cinemas in April.

Filmed at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre in mid-September 2011, this filmed stage production has also been released on DVD and Blu-Ray in Ireland, Australia and a number of other territories.