Jenni & I had the good fortune to attend the second night of the Bristol run of the Les Miserables tour at the Hippodrome on Wednesday. It was absolutely fabulous and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I knew some of the tunes before I went (who doesn’t, even if they don’t know it!) and Jenni had seen it before when she was quite young. I don’t think either of us were fully prepared for the quality of the production that we were treated to that night.
The tour running at the moment is the new production, put together by Cameron Mackintosh for the 25th anniversary. The set designs were wonderfully rustic and creepy with a real hand drawn feel to them. The production uses really clever techniques with digital backdrops, surround sound and lighting to give effects of movement far beyond what you normally expect to see on a theatre stage (I don’t want to give too much away because it’s a bit cooler if it takes you by surprise really!) The quality of acting, singing and orchestration was also very very good. Stand out performances on the acting front, in my opinion, were ‘Eponine’ (not sure who was playing her - answers on a postcard to...), John Owen-Jones as ‘Jean Valjean’ and Earl Carpenter as ‘Javert’. Gareth Gates was also very good in the role of ‘Marius’; theatre suits him far far better than Pop Idol ever did! For song performances, the standout moments for me were Eponine’s ‘On My Own’, John Owen-Jones’s ‘Bring Him Home’ and Gareth Gates’s ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’.
This is far and above the best piece of musical theatre I have ever had the delight to see and I recommend you catch it while you can - It closes on 7th August.
Other coolness: According to Wikipedia the new cast recording for the 25th anniversary tour went on sale tonight, premiering at the Hippodrome! If this is true it is both cool and rubbish at the same time because I was obviously a night early.
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