Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael Ball Live at the Royal Albert Hall is a tour-de-force from a performer who manages to combine West-End stardom with great success as Britain's favourite MOR performer. By the end of the 1980s he was already a youthful veteran of some of the decade's biggest musicals, including
Les Misérables and
The Phantom of the Opera. But his performance in Lloyd Webber's
Aspects of Love, which spawned the hit single "Love Changes Everything", turned him into a major star--a status he has maintained with best-selling albums, sell-out concert tours and television series.
As this 1999 concert reveals, he is at his best singing show songs which give him a character to get his teeth into: "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", for example. And he is a first-rate pop singer whose gallant 1992 bid for Eurovision glory is recalled with the up tempo "One Step out of Time". He favours dramatic ballads and sometimes takes them way over the top: there's more than a touch of Dusty Springfield in his histrionic gestures. But it's all delivered with an engaging charm that clearly delights the predominantly female audience. Also included is a "Backstage with Michael Ball" documentary. --Piers Ford
Synopsis
Recorded live at The Royal Albert Hall in 1999, Michael Ball performs tracks from his Movies album. Plus a 'Backstage With Michael Ball' programme which features Michael on tour in the UK.