Les Misérables: 30 reasons why 'that awful musical' has stood the test of time
“Do you hear the people sing?” runs the rousing finale of Les Misérables – and famously, it was the people that swung it for what, since 2006, has become the world’s longest-running musical. But not everyone likes to hear the people singing.
Andrew Davies, who has adapted the original book into an entirely song-free BBC television series, told The Telegraph that his aim was to “rescue Victor Hugo’s novel from the clutches of that awful musical with its doggerel lyrics”. He's not the first to have taken against it.
When Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s bid to convert Hugo’s sprawling 1862 epic into gripping theatre was first set before the critics at the Barbican in October 1985 (with Trevor Nunn directing for the RSC, a West End transfer already lined up by producer Cameron Mackintosh), it was met with a chorus of sniffy disdain.
“Witless and synthetic entertainment,” moaned the Observer. “Despite the grandeur of the music, the courage of the intentions, Les Misérables has, sadly, been reduced to The Glums,” concluded the Daily Mail’s Jack Tinker. One Lyn Gardner, then of City Limits, hailed it as a “load of sentimental old tosh…” adding: “If I was the RSC I’d forget about a West End transfer and settle for a made-for-TV American mini-series”.
And the transfer to the Palace teetered in the balance only for Mackintosh to discover that the public were booking in droves to see the show; the rest, as they say, is history – but still in the making: Les Mis has been seen by mover 70 million people in 51 countries and in 22 languages. Why has it triumphed on such a colossal scale? Here are 30 key ingredients to chew on.
1. Vive Le Mackintosh!
Mackintosh is never one to rest on his laurels – and count the money; the “machine” of Les Mis has been kept fully oiled, much refined as the years have gone by, and trundled out to as many territories as can take it. Thanks to him, a revolutionary show has become a commercial empire in its own right.
He played a crucial role in assembling the British creative team and building the show from the ground up into a full-length spectacular, having been captivated by a recording of a “musical tableau” Boublil and Schonberg had staged in Paris (“by the fourth track I had already decided that I had to do it”).
2. Qu'est-ce que c'est?
Initially it was feared “Les Misérables” would be too much of a mouthful for the average punter; but not only has the affectionate early nickname “Les Mis” been widely adopted, the full title is, as some have wryly noted, the closest many Brits come to speaking French. Unapologetic, even defiant in its Gallic identity, it helps the show stand out from the crowd.
3. One page less
Though a dominant criticism in those early reviews was that the show "reduced" Hugo’s monumental (1,200 page) literary masterpiece to a mere pulp, the digestive act is one of the reasons why it appeals. How many people on this side of the Channel would have waded through the source material, in translation or otherwise? The precis of the book grants audiences a short-cut to intellectual cachet which a night out at We Will Rock You never did.
4. Through-sung thrills
The decision to have every word sung has its nay-sayers – those who argue it lends the whole evening a portentous air – but the rare point about Les Mis is that everything is happening at such a high-fevered pitch of emotion that it makes complete sense for the characters to converse, and declaim, in song: there’s an artistic truth to the artifice.
5. Speed is of the essence
The sheer speed with which Les Mis progresses makes many other musicals look lumbering. Within minutes we’re introduced to our hero, the ex-convict 24601 Jean Valjean, whose bid to shed the identifying badge of his parole and begin afresh makes him the quarry of indefatigable law-enforcer Javert. In the novel it takes some 70 pages to make Valjean’s acquaintance.
The hurtling inexorability of the evening too makes it a bit like strapping into a theme-park ride; there are no longueurs, barely time to catch breath, let alone yawn.
6. The magic roundabout
Assisting this velocity is the revolving stage – sometimes mocked (vis the pastiche show Forbidden Broadway: “I’m the turnable who starred in Les Miz but they fired me, now I’ve left the biz”…) but never beaten; when Javert falls to his death (spoiler alert!) the effect of him spinning away into nothingness is minimally achieved, yet utterly effective.
7. Look, no chandelier!
There’s a rough-theatre simplicity overall to John Napier’s design which means that where other blockbusters became identified (and possibly reduced) in discerning theatregoers’ minds with gimmickry – Miss Saigon’s helicopter, say, or Phantom’s chandelier – the chief scenic feature here is the multi-faceted, mutinous mob of early 19th century France. Yes, the piled-up barricades look a treat, but they take second-place to the human dimension.
8. No expense spared
Although the show has a leaner, hungrier look than many heavyweight musicals – eschewing razzmatazz – that doesn’t mean you can’t see where every centime has gone: there are approximately 101 cast and crew involved in every performance; and it shows. Each performance involves 392 costumes, consisting of 1782 items of clothing.
9. The wall of sound
Few other musicals deliver goose-bumps by the cart-load as Les Mis does, with its symphonic richness of sound and operatic intensity. The potent, stirring songs, of course, help hugely – just when you think the pot is empty, up swells another – but there’s an immensity to their delivery that sweeps you away.
Ever since Christopher Jahnke supplied fresh orchestrations and the synthesised sounds got souped-up, banishing the tinny electronica that gave the initial version a touch of Howard Jones, lushness has prevailed.
10. Ear-worms that keep wriggling
A hallmark of Boublil and Schonberg’s winning formula is the way songs are not only reprised but also refashioned – a motif building like an argument, or a gathering of the like-minded, linking arms across the evening: the intricacy and attention to detail is second to none, and gets under the skin.
Jean Valjean’s promise to the dying Fantine, for instance, of giving a new life to her daughter Cosette borrows the rags of I Dreamed a Dream. The songs aren’t just catchy – they’re like ear-worms that get cut into pieces and keep wriggling.
11. The only way is epic
Might as well state the obvious: Les Mis thinks big – big emotions, big ideas, life and death struggles – the humble peasant versus the great inhuman edifices of authority and privilege. Injustice is piled upon injustice, hope wars with despair, the righteous don’t easily prevail.
Les Mis doesn’t only offer an escape to a world where everything was at stake – it reminds us that these things remain present in our own lives, are part and parcel of our lot on earth.
12. God almighty!
Part of the strange way in which Les Mis has found renewed value as the years roll by is that the most unfashionable of its concerns – religion – has stepped back into the frame. This isn’t a simplistic tale of good versus of evil, but ideas of "good" – the truly religious (Valjean) and the fiercely repressive (Javert). The show has a spiritual side to it – which you feel on the pulse too, through sounds alternately rough and violent, soothing and heavenly.
13. Clarity is next to godliness
A major advantage this show has over others is that you can actually hear the people sing; Herbert Kretzmer’s lyrics combine wit with simplicity – they land as they should; the short-lived West End revival of Evita was a reminder that rock musicals can sound like mush.
14. The biggest weepie in the West
Though it was derided for its sentimentality by some, you are guaranteed to hear audience sniffles at almost any performance you attend – and may be advised to bring a hankie too. Things do not end in a pat, satisfactory fashion for the abused Fantine, or even Valjean. There is heroism, there is sacrifice, there is unrequited love. “There are storms we cannot weather”, runs a line from the show’s signature song, I Dreamed a Dream. True enough.
15. SuBo power
An undoubted factor in boosting the show’s appeal just when it might have started flagging was the knockout rendition of I Dreamed a Dream in the audition rounds of Britain’s Got Talent by contestant Susan Boyle in April 2009.
Although this song – sung by Fantine – features some of Les Mis’s iffiest lyrics (not least “But the tigers come at night/ With their voices soft as thunder”) it brilliantly evokes a sense of disillusion and despair when sung with passion and conviction (and in the case of Boyle, no stranger to hard knocks, a whiff of gritty authenticity). Her version went viral on YouTube; it was the making of her, and arguably the remaking of the show; for many it’s worth the price of admission.
16. Family friendly
Despite the heart-ache that seeps through the show’s pores, and the way Fantine is plunged into prostitution early on, the show is ripe and ready to be viewed by almost all ages (babes in arms excepted); the Telegraph’s arts editor Serena Davies was smitten at the age of 11.
17. Kiddies!
It was the sight and sound of the Artful Dodger in Oliver! that apparently set Boublil and Schonberg thinking that they could do a Lionel Bart on Hugo’s novel and bring the urchins of rough and tumble Paris to grubby, endearing life; boldly setting children centre-stage, we get two knock-out numbers from the very young: the guttersnipe Gavroche and that tender little Cinderella figure Cosette (with her Oliver-esque ditty “Castle on a Cloud”).
18. Toffs!
We all like to loathe a toff – and we also like to swoon at the best of the bunch too; Les Mis provides nasty rakes straight out of the school of anti-capitalist agit-prop but it also gives us the unvarnished loveliness of Marius, the handsome student revolutionary furtively adored by the miserable Eponine.
19. Cockneys!
Undoubtedly sharing unlikely common-ground with Oliver! in this respect, the mood is lightened by the presence of London-sounding ‘low-life’; the drollest number of the night is given to that grasping entrepreneur par excellence Thenardier (“Master of the House”), played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the 2012 film.
20. The film factor
Tom Hooper’s award-winning movie plainly helped the musical enjoy a surge in fortune; seeing to it that the actors were captured singing naturalistically, rather than being dubbed, the film made an incidental passionate plea for the power of musical theatre itself.
Some of the film’s stars – Eddie Redmayne, Anne Hathaway – are now such major figures, Les Mis might even grow in popularity as they ascend the firmament; conversely, if you hated Russell Crowe’s gruff-voiced Javert, you may want to erase the memory by visiting the live incarnation.
21. Uprisings are for life, not just 1832
Another curious facet of the show’s enduring eloquence: in the wake of the Arab Spring in particular, it’s become clear that popular uprisings are every bit as integral to the 21st century as they were to Hugo’s time (he deals with the Paris Uprising of 1832).
And the musical itself has perhaps played a role in historical ferment: as the critic Benedict Nightingale notes – “In pre-1989 Gdynia, near Gdansk, the actors refused to wave red flags, opting for Polish ones instead, and ended by giving the Solidarity salute, a clenched fist.”
22. Global reach
The fact that the show has now been seen by over 70 million, with more productions in the pipeline, lends a reinforcing power to the original production in the West End; it’s part of the tourist trail now, a shrine for converts.
23. Long-runners stay that way
Les Mis has now attained the “Mousetrap” factor – it may keep running because it has kept running; who would be foolhardy enough to get through their theatre-going life without having seen what all the fuss was about?
24. Repeat after me
In common with other major musicals, Les Mis inspires fervent fandom – and repeat viewings. Die-hard Miserabilists are reputed to book into the same seats for consecutive matinees on a rolling basis and know the show inside out – even every lighting cue.
25. Smaller is better
Rather than letting it dwindle, the decision to keep Les Misérables running in the West End but transfer it to the smaller Queen’s theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2004 reaped benefits; the relative intimacy of the space means that you never feel part of some coach-party experience, even if (in fact) you sometimes are.
26. Cool for school
Children are already being nurtured to become the next generation of ready-made Les Mis enthusiasts: since 2001, there have been thousands of school productions in the UK, US and Australia, making it the most successful musical ever produced in schools. The show’s strong gender-balance means that it gives children almost equal access to theatrical challenges and triumphs.
27. The Entente Cordiale
The show serves an expression of what can happen when creativity spans the Channel – Anglo-French amity made flesh; indeed in 2004, there was a special concert given at Windsor Castle in the presence of the Queen to honour President Chirac and celebrate the centenary of the Entente Cordiale. Les Mis hymns the greatness of France – but could not do so without the gloire of Les Anglais.
28. Melancholy!
The sadness that haunts the evening is intensified by the fact that Les Mis is still running after all these years – in returning to the show, you can commune with days beyond recall, past visits to the show, people no longer in your life. “Empty chairs at empty tables” (itself adopted as an anthem for the Aids-era) ripples out beyond the confines of the show.
29. A field of one
With the exception of the still mighty Phantom of the Opera, it’s just possible that Les Misérables is now so dominant it cannot, for the foreseeable future, be matched – anyone who attempts a historical musical based on a literary classic has to walk in its shadow. Only the relative newcomer Hamilton summons up anything like the same kind of revolutionary fervour.
30. Optimism!
For all its luxuriant sadness the show affirms humanity – and the value of comradeship – in a way that finally puts a spring in your step. The more unpleasant aspect of the mob we see at the start – with scenes of groups rounding on the vulnerable among them – has been supplanted by a sense of what, together – in a spirit of liberte, egalite, fraternite – can be achieved. Avant!
Les Misérables is currently playing at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue; book tickets
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