This Wednesday is the 40th anniversary of the musical Les Misérables. I was lucky enough to be at the Barbican Theatre a few days before opening night to see one of the previews with the original cast, including Colm Wilkinson, Patti Lupone and Michael Ball.
It was one of the theatrical landmarks of my life. It was like nothing else that I had ever seen in the theatre. It was as if I was grabbed by the story and taken on an emotional roller-coaster of feelings.. The music was sublime, full of different moods and changes of pace. The singers were amazing actors, able to convincingly become characters in a different time and place, and somehow be totally believable. We laughed, we wept, we became angry, we became sad, and we held our breath as we followed what happened. At one point, Fantine died, and as she leaned up in the bed, the lighting became brighter and brighter on the white sheets. Brilliant.
At one point, the wonderful set turned, changed, swivelled and swept in again to build the broken streets of Paris. Except that it didn’t, it suddenly stopped mid-flight. A stage manager ran in wearing black clothes and a headset and said, “Sorry, everyone, can we set back please. Stand by and go again.” And in the great tradition of theatre, we loved them even more for it. We knew we were witnessing something special, and this was most evident at the end. The great climax happened, wrongs were righted, evil doers disposed of, and the lovers reunited while Jean Valjean got his redemption in heaven. It closed with a deafening and rousing finale of Can You Hear the People Sing? Starting gently, it built until you thought there could be no more life squeezed out of it.
And we audience did nothing. We were wrung out, open-mouthed, staring at the stage. It had squeezed the life out of us. Time seemed to stretch in the silence. I looked around, and everyone had tears rolling down their faces. We just blubbed and shook. And then suddenly people began to clap, and we were on our feet to roar a standing ovation. Something special had passed between the stage and the audience, and yet the critics didn’t think it would work – the people knew differently. They knew a winner when they saw it because it spoke to them, and it was about all of us.
Over the years, I have seen it many times, and in 2014, I became a proud dad when Tamsin, my daughter, joined the cast for three years. Of course, I also went to see her and again when she went on several times as Madame Thenardier with blacked out teeth – she was very good. She returned to the cast in 2019 with the Concert Version starring Michael Ball and Alfie Boe and was also part of the film and album.
Over 130 million people have seen it in 53 countries and 22 languages, and still every night after 40 years they stand and roar and probably blub as well.
