Run! Grab a packet of tissues and join the barricades NOW. Grab a ticket if you haven’t already for this excellent production of ‘Les Miserables’ by Willoughby Theatre Company.
Under the excellent direction of Tom Sweeney this magnificent production comes to life. LES MISERABLES the musical has been going strong since 1985, now seen and loved by over 65 million people and most recently earlier this year with the Hugh Jackman/Russell Crowe/Anne Hathaway film version. (a new Melbourne production is coming later this year).
There are some slight changes /simplifications to the staging of the now ‘traditional’ stage version we know and love (no revolve, no trapdoor for example) but with the huge tattered French flag draped on stage we are catapulted into the world of Hugo’s novel.
LES MIS is a savage, powerful cry for justice , a searing indictment of the poverty and injustice of society at the time. Very briefly , the plot ( as according to Wikipedia) is as follows: ‘ Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a burly French peasant of abnormal strength and potentially violent nature, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his starving sister’s child.
Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him to, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters – including Fantine, Cosette ,Marius and the Thernardiers – are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade’.
The excellent atmospheric lighting by Sean Clarke is crucial to the show. Musically the show is superb and the orchestra under maestro Mark Pigot is terrific.
From the opening songs this was a very strong production and the big chorus numbers ( ‘One Day More’, ‘Lovely Ladies’, ‘Drink With Me’, and ‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ ) were wonderful.
The Boubil and Schonberg score varies enormously- sometimes it is quite operatic and difficult, then at other time lyrical and heartbreaking…stirring and inspirational, and satirical and waltzlike.
It is essential that you have a Jean Val Jean who can carry the show and Stig Bell is magnificent. He handles his difficult numbers (one can almost say ‘arias’) superbly. We see his spiritual turmoil and change from the start , striving to be unbroken by circumstances and good , and his soaring , pleading ‘Bring Him Home’ in Act 2 has the audience is deeply moving.
The sinister, implacable policeman Javert was well portrayed by Nick Gilbert . Cold and determined , in black with wild eyes, he doggedly tracks down Valjean .Their decades long battle never ends and Javert refuses to believe that Valjean has changed for the better .His whole world is thrown into turmoil with Valjean’s actions and his final soliloquy is very well played.
Kimberley Jensen as poor Fantine, Cosette’s mother, breaks our hearts with her ‘ I Dreamed a Dream’. The grown up Cossette was very prettily played by Elizabeth Garrett . But it is the adult Eponine (Carolyn Reed )who is of particular note – again we cry with her when she sings ‘On My Own’ , and at the duet for her and Marius, ‘A Little Fall of Rain’ . Earnest young student Marius is delightfully played by Julian Goncalves in fine voice (especially the regretful , melancholy ‘Empty Chairs and Empty Tables ‘) . Young, rebellious leader Enjolras is magnetically played and fabulously sung by Peter Meredith .Cheeky plucky Gavroche ( ‘Little People’ ) was excellently played by James Reville and poor young Cosette enchantingly played by Emily Simmons ( ‘Castle on a cloud’ ) .
The dastardly, cynically manipulative Thernardiers is terrifically played by Philip Youngman and Emily Kimpton is great (the rollicking ‘Master of the House’ in Act 1 and their ‘Beggars at the Feast’ in Act 2.
A stirring, magnificent very powerful production…Do you hear the people sing?!
The show’s running time is 3 hours and 10 minutes with one interval. The Willoughby Theatre Company’s production of LES MISERABLES plays at the Concourse Theatre until Sunday April 21, 2013.
© Lynne Lancaster
