Les Misérables (yes I know it's not Grease!)

Queen’s Theatre

I really wasn’t sure I’d like this. I saw it when I was little and I thought it was boring and too operatic, I didn’t like how there wasn’t any spoken dialogue. Now of course I see opera more than anything and I think anything that does have spoken dialogue sounds a bit odd. I don’t mind Mozart’s Singspiels in German but as soon as you start translating them into English, I’m a bit funny with that too. Even though I love Grease, which has spoken dialogue.

I thought this time that I’d think Les Mis wasn’t operatic enough. But I didn’t think that at all. It’s not the most operatic thing I’ve ever heard but it is very classically sung. There aren’t any American accents like you get in Grease and pop songs. The vibrato is like you’d get in lighter operatic styles (I mean light as in Mozart and Handel, not like operetta). I enjoyed the singing a lot.

The production is big and complicated, with loads of huge sets (designed by John Napier), a revolving stage and at least one trap door. It was all very slick and professional. There were no creaks or groans from the set and you didn’t really notice when a new bit of scenery was being put into place, it just seemed to appear. David Hersey is credited with the lighting which is funny in a way because there wasn’t a lot of lighting, the stage always seemed very dark. But in a way, that shows you how clever the lighting was. It seemed dark but you could always see what was going on.

The orchestra sounded great too. It obviously wasn’t a full orchestra and I heard the number of musicians has been cut down since it moved from the Palace Theatre to the Queen’s and that some of the music was electronically produced but it didn’t sound all mechanical or anything like that. It just sounded like a really good small orchestra. It says the orchestra is ‘under the direction of’ Adam Rowe so I’ll assume he was the conductor, he did a good job I thought. And you could see his stick waggling about all the way through, which was nice.

Les Mis doesn’t have the best musical score ever. It does have quite a few songs but they tend to be recycled a lot. So you’ll get the same song, or phrases from the same song, done several times. But that was actually okay. If a song was repeated, there was nearly always an obvious reason for it. There was a connection between the scenes with identical tunes (although usually different words)

Three of the main stars weren’t there which meant I had to see some understudies but I love seeing understudies so I was really happy. In some ways, understudies are more exciting with something like Grease which I see a lot because you can compare the different performers. But there’s also something special about seeing an understudy because it’s a version of the role most people don’t get to see. Also, most reviews tend to be of the main cast so the understudies won’t have many reviews of their performances. Well they’re getting a review on this blog. Even if they’re not interested in reading reviews, it all helps to put their names out there on the web.

The only complaint I have about the understudy announcement is that they only said who would be playing Valjean, Javert and Fantine. The understudies who replaced them all have their own roles as well but it didn’t say who was going to replace them in these roles. They do only have very small roles though and there are so many small roles, it would probably take forever to announce every single cast change.

Even so, it does make reviewing more difficult when I’m not completely sure who I saw. There might also be understudies who I don’t know about. I know that Lesgles, the Factory Foreman and the Crone were almost certainly all performed by understudies because the main performers had been promoted to the big roles. But there could have been other small roles which were played by understudies too.

The Jean Valjean I didn’t get to see was Simon Bowman, who is Welsh. But I still got to see a Welshman in the role because he was replaced by Jonathan Williams. Jonathan was excellent. I know understudies are supposed to be so good, you wouldn’t guess they were understudies but Valjean is such a huge role and he changes so much during the course of the musical. Jonathan really commanded the stage right from the start and was completely convincing whether he was a dodgy convict, the respectable but distant Mayor, the kind and caring man who rescues Fantine (and I think he falls in love with her too), the protective father of Cosette, the brave volunteer fighter, or the old man nearing the end of his life.

He was quite unlikeable early on (although there was something compelling about him) but once he was over being a criminal I liked him a lot. Jonathan looked very handsome (until he got all old) and he was very charismatic. He has a really beautiful voice too. The role has a huge range and at the top of the range, he seemed to go into falsetto (or he tilted his larynx like counter tenors do) but it always sounded really lovely and not unnatural to sing those lines in a slightly different way.

Hans-Peter Janssens was off as Javert and in some ways it was disappointing not to see him as he is a real opera singer who has sung Don Giovanni and Demetrius among other roles. But he too had an excellent replacement. Javert is a difficult role because he’s a bit of a wanker but I really like how Jeff Nicholson performed the role. He said all the cruel things but there was something quite human and slightly vulnerable about him.

Also I’d like to say Javert isn’t quite that bad. Valjean says so himself, Javert has done some bad things but he was only doing his duty. And there are times when Javert could have dragged Valjean back to prison but he doesn’t. Early on, Valjean asks Javert to put off arresting him for three days while he rescues Cosette and in three days time he’ll come back and be arrested. Does he keep his word? Of course he doesn’t. He runs off with Cosette and Javert doesn’t find him again for years. Then later on Javert has another chance to nab him but he agrees to let Valjean take Marius to hospital instead. So I think in some ways, Javert is pretty understanding.

Jeff did a great job with Javert’s suicide. The bridge he threw himself off was only a few inches off the ground and I was thinking, oh dear this is going to look really crap. But it was actually an amazing piece of action and it didn’t matter that he was just standing up and waving his arms around before falling to the floor and rolling offstage. It was really dramatically done and a real OMG he’s going to die moment.

Natalie Day replaced Rebecca Seale as Fantine. Fantine dies pretty early on but she’s an important character up to that point and she gets the big ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ solo. It’s a small role but one with so many acting challenges. Natalie was heartbreaking at the lovely, innocent (except for the illegitimate child), trusting, well-meaning girl who becomes a prostitute in order to keep Cosette alive. She sang beautifully too although it was a shame that her most passionate lines were performed as they were – the words shouted and screamed instead of sung, with lots of arm-waving. I won’t blame Natalie for that though as she certainly wasn’t the only singer who did it, it must be a director thing and quite possibly something audiences at musicals like to see. I think singing it beautifully would be far more affecting but maybe that’s because I’m used to operas and their conventions, if I went to musicals regularly and operas occasionally I bet I’d think it was the operas that were weird. (And how many people would disagree with that?)

The main reason I wanted to see Les Mis was because I heard that Emily Bull, who was brilliant as Frenchy and First Sandy Cover in Grease, was singing the role of Cosette, which she’d previously covered. Cosette and Frenchy both go for geeky boys but apart from that they’re completely different roles. Emily acted the role beautifully and her voice was lovely too, quite soft and sweet but perfectly audible. The only problem was that the role seemed a bit high-lying for her. The single high notes were gorgeous and easily hit but any high-lying phrase seemed like a bit of a stretch. Maybe she was having an off-night vocally because she is a great singer.

Alastair Brammer played Cosette’s boyfriend Marius. He was just my type, all sort of geeky and emotional, a really lovely character. He has a really sweet tenor voice and lovely curly hair (I can quite understand why Eponine loves how it grows) and he did a great job of pretending to be half-dead, hanging off Valjean’s shoulder. That must have been so uncomfortable.

I like Cosette a lot but unlike Marius I would have chosen Eponine. Eponine is the Other Woman in a way and she’s conveniently killed off before she gets too much in the way of the plot but she’s actually a lovely character and her death is one of the saddest moments in the opera. I’m serious, I nearly got drowned because my boyfriend was crying so much. And I really don’t think he could have coped with a second death at that moment (luckily Valjean managed to hang on for another hour).

Eponine is brave, resourceful, intelligent, soppily in love with Marius, who sees her just as a friend, and completely loyal to him. And I’m sure it might have happened for them if Cosette hadn’t come along. Marius told Eponine he loved Cosette but he didn’t know her name and he asked her to find out who she was. And she actually did it. I bet plenty of perfectly nice girls would have pretended they couldn’t find Cosette.

Nancy Sullivan played Eponine and it was an amazing acting performance. Everything I saw in Eponine’s character I saw because of the way Nancy played the role. She also has a lovely voice although she’s another who had to scream notes when she got really upset. I think she’s probably a good dancer too. I don’t think Eponine dances but Nancy had to do lots of climbing and she was very sure-footed.

The stars for most of the audience were M. and Mme Thénardier, two really horrible people who abused Cosette whilst indulging Eponine (it’s a miracle she turned out as nice as she did). But the audience loved them. Well, they probably agreed with me that they were horrible, cruel, money-grabbing wankers but most people found that really funny. Martin Ball and Lorraine Bruce did perform the roles well. They were vibrant and full of character and they have big, powerful voices. I just didn’t find them very funny.

Maybe I might have liked them more if their big scene hadn’t been full of people vomiting (that was scarier than the gun shots, it really was) but they didn’t sing in very nice voices and their acting was exaggerated and they seemed really grotesque and grasping. But I’m sure that’s exactly why they’re so funny and why everyone else in the theatre loved them. And I do think ‘Let’s all raise a glass/Raise it up the master’s arse’ is one of the best lines in musical theatre. I did think that was funny.

Gavroche was the funniest character for me. He’s played by a boy and I’m not sure which one he was – either Jamie Davis, William Eddon, Jonathan Gardner or George Sargeant – but he was great. He had great stage presence and he really seemed to be having a great time. He sang well too and his voice sounded a lot stronger than most young boys’ voices although he was probably discreetly miked up.

Little Cosette sings too – the famous Castle on a Cloud song. She was played by Sasha Eastabrook, Jemima Eaton, Sally Ann Gray or Chloe Panayi. Her music didn’t seem as challenging as Gavroche’s but she sang very sweetly and it just makes me think, why aren’t there more young girls in opera? Why not have some girls instead of some boys in The Magic Flute or a really young Flora in The Turn of the Screw instead of someone who’s probably old enough to drink in America? Or in Albert Herring they usually have a real boy as the boy but two grown-up singers to be the girls. I bet there are loads of girl singers who sing really well but don’t get the chance to show it as much as boys do.

Maybe my favourite voice in the performance was David Thaxton’s. He’s actually an opera singer who’s been in The Rake’s Progress and The Cunning Little Vixen. I didn’t know that until I’d got home but even though Enjolras isn’t a huge role, I really noticed him because I liked his voice so much. He’s probably not really the best singer, it might be just that I love opera voices slightly more than any other kind of voice (although I like all kinds of music really, I love r’n’b too) so he stood out for me. I still think he’s a great singer though.

It would be difficult to mention all the other singers and I’m not sure I do remember quite everyone but there were some performers who particularly stood out. The understudy who replaced Jeff Nicholson as the Factory Foreman was great, he really made a lot out of the small role. I didn’t like the character though, he was horrible. Gavin James who played the Bishop of Digne was a lovely man, he seemed really kind and gentle. I liked the Whores too. One of them was Chloe Brooks, who I loved as Jan and Miss Lynch in Grease. She isn’t covering any of the big roles but she’s probably covering some of the smaller roles. I might have recognised her but I’m not very good at recognising people.