Les Miserables {Musical}

Les Miserables has always been one of my favourite musicals. I was familiar with the song “On My Own” thanks to Dawson’s Creek, which was the popular TV series in my high school years. I eventually saw the whole musical on a VHS because my dad studied it before he played the role of Javert for a church production. I also saw the hollywood version a few years ago (and thought they messed up the vocals) but I still really wanted to see the live professional theatre production.

Even though I booked the tickets months ago, I still couldn’t manage to find any seats at the front in the middle through all of the dates, and only managed to get side second row seats.

This was our view of the stage. It wasn’t too bad. The actors would sometimes walk off the stage right in front of us. They were so close, that at one point, during a scene between Jean Valjean and Javert and the former was holding a gun, Maybelle jokingly whispered to me in fear, “We might get hit!”

Maybelle and Jemma were pretty amazed at our seats. It was their first time to be up front, and they agreed that from then on, they will only get front seats to theatre plays because you can appreciate the show even more if you can see all the emotions on the actors’ faces.

Simon Gleeson who played Jean Valjean was amazing. From the very first opening scenes to the last, his voice was so powerful that we wondered how we could still have his voice after all that!

I was impressed with Earl Capenter who played Javert as well.

As for the rest… well they’re all really great, too, but the problem is that after having seen different peoples’ portrayals of their roles, I guess I have my biases.

Fantine, for example, is best portrayed by Anne Hathaway whose “I Dreamed a Dream” is so touching it will break you.

That still didn’t stop me from bawling my eyes out during the same scene in the live theatre, and perhaps half a dozen more times during the musical.

Yes, despite knowing the story beforehand and having had time to prepare.

 

I may have lip synced along to some of the songs which I knew by heart. I said lip sync… not sing out loud. Doing that last part is obviously horrifying and wrong, and which Lea Salonga apparently ranted about on Twitter when Les Mis was in the Philippines.

I can’t decide which are my favourite musical numbers… there are so many good ones – I Dreamed a Dream, Who am I, On My Own, One Day More, A Little Fall of Rain, Empty Chairs and Empty Tables… and that finale just rips my heart out.

Splendid cast, beautiful performance. Totally worth all the money I spent on front row tickets.