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General Les Mis feedback from out there [Cardiff]

Maggiemags

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Maggiemags Newbie

Maggiemags

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No mention of Gareth, or even Marius :sad: , but I thought a five-star review from The Times was still worth posting. From here by Benedict Nightingale.

This touring Les Mis is and isn’t the show that, 24 years after it opened, is still playing in London. I Dreamed a Dream, the song that has elevated Susan Boyle from a Scots loner to the world’s best friend, is to be heard, as is the rest of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s often soaring, sometimes sardonic music. Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel remains intact. But the creative team was asked to re-imagine the show and has done so, not least by adding more Hugo and, I think, more intensity.

More Hugo? Well, the subtle, hazy paintings of rural France that led Delacroix to say that the writer could have become a great artist are often projected on to the back wall. Combined with Paule Constable’s deft, delicate lighting, they give Laurence Connor and James Powell’s production a strange, mythic feel. I thought that I would miss John Napier’s original set, two sections of which slid across the stage and then clanked together like copulating monsters, creating an imaginative yet realistic barricade for the show’s student revolutionaries to defend. But no. Matt Kinley’s designs are simpler — Paris is transformed into towering slum buildings, below which citizens scurry like mice — but more than serviceable and, thanks to his use of film, much more so when Valjean carries his adopted daughter’s wounded lover through the Paris sewers or Javert throws himself deep through the misty air into a seething Seine.

Valjean is the convict who breaks his parole and is relentlessly pursued by the policeman Javert. John Owen-Jones, who plays him in Cardiff and (soon) on tour, begins as the most battered, bitter, brutalised Valjean I’ve seen, which is a plus, since it means that his redemption and moral reconstruction is strikingly moving. I confess that, as always with this show, my hoary old eyes refused to remain dry. Is it that Les Mis tells our cynical world that spiritual change is possible, that self-sacrifice happens and goodness exists? Something like that.

The Millennium Centre in Cardiff is so vast and vaulty it’s astonishing that the cast can make the conflict between justice, as it’s embodied by Earl Carpenter’s stiff, severe Javert, and Valjean’s mercy feel as immediate as it does. But then almost all the performers are as strong as those I’ve seen in London, down to a wizened, smirking Ashley Artus and a chunky, tough Lynne Wilmot as those representives of evil opportunism, the Thenardiers. And if I were asked which is better, this or Trevor Nunn and John Caird’s London staging, I would be hard put to answer.

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Val4Gareth Newbie

Val4Gareth

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That's a great review. It is The Times though. I doubt they could bring themselves to say anything nice about Gareth. Still he must have been good enough that they couldn't criticize him and he did say almost everyone was as good as those he'd seen in the WE. :thumbsup:

Five star :thumbsup:

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eternal Veteran

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It's good to know the Times review has finally appeared.

The reviewer Benedict Nightingale is the guy who has written the full page piece in the programme. It was written when he was at the rehersals.

It is dissapointing that no mention of Marius made but there wasn't really any mention of anyone.

I hope Katie Hall isn't too depressed by the no mentio,n because after all it is the people who are filling the theatres, who are going to be the judges.

Five stars is brill :frantics: and when advertising is to be done the starring is what they will use (hopefully).

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Snowdrop Newbie

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A five star review is excellent. The Times don't hand them out willy nilly, so he must have been impressed.

I thought the structure was a bit strange, but it seems to be aimed at explaining the show to those who are already very familiar with the WE version, and focuses on what has been done differently. From my understanding, Gareth's Marius isn't that different from the WE one, and the article is written by an older man, so he is inevitably less intersted in the young romantic lead, or the romance at all. In fact, none of the younger characters are amongst those mentioned.

However, he couldn't have thought anyone was bad, or he'd have said, and he wouldn't have given a five star review unless he thought everyone was good at least, averaging very good to excellent!

The over-all conclusion was that the touring version has every bit of the credibility and clout as the one currently on in London, which is important as it is often assumed that touring versions are inferior. The reviews by non-professionals confirmed that for us weeks ago, but these more serious reviewers like to do it in their own time and their own under-stated way.

I do wonder if the reason some people are a bit disappointed is that the reviewer spent some time with the cast during rehearsals and it may be that he gave them personal feedback and/or talked to them about aspects of their own character that never made his final copy.

The show doesn't particularly need good reviews, because where it's on sale it's selling incredibly well, but if there are to be more dates then they'll sell even better with a five star review from the Times on the poster.

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Snowdrop Newbie

Snowdrop

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Someone on Twitter was saying they'd been offered a ticket for "press night" in Manchester, so obviously they intend to get the local great and the good (he was a DJ) in again there. He said he was recording a show at the time, so may not make it, but useful to know all the same! :laugh:

We should probably start a new thread for Manchester btw, but it's easier in here for now! :heart:

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Khelda Community Regular

Khelda

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mattsababe (2 days ago)

I saw Les Miserables in Cardiff yesterday, it was AMAZING! all the cast were brilliant and Gareth was brilliant too, i think his voice is better suited for the stage performances like this rather than pop, i enjoyed him as a pop star but enjoy him more now, his voice is lovely. Brilliant performance well worth going to see, for anyone who is going....enjoy

Posted under the video on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sliTvkk5PMA

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Maggiemags Newbie

Maggiemags

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A truly masterly piece of theatre art from here, the theatre dance and drama in Wales website:

The powerful brass instruments accompanied by furious drum beats flood the Donald Gordon auditorium. Soon they are joined by the romance of the strings and then with all the orchestra that unique high dissonance of Schönberg’s music (whose presence at the curtain call was greatly appreciated) has us sitting upright and the hairs on the back of our necks tingling. Musical director Michael England, like everyone involved in this production, is a master of his art. As too is his chief sound man Mick Potter. They drive the music to always be all around us but the balance between the playing and the singing is always perfectly maintained.

And what marvellous signing voices, like the music penetrating our very being. Our senses are, as they continue to be throughout out the next three hours, excited by the manly full voices of the chorus, here as prisoners, beaten as the pull hard on the oars in the stinking bows of a ship set against a sweeping background, a work of fine art influenced by the drawings of original author Victor Hugo himself. Many more scenes follow with outstanding Impressionist backgrounds. Matt Kinley’s set design, involving the use of projection achieves an amazing atmosphere late in the play where we see Valjean dragging Marius’ lifeless body through the sewers of Paris. Quite early on it is clear that this is both a musical and visual masterpiece.

John Owen-Jones’ Jean Valjean is a powerful and beautiful man with a powerful and beautiful voice and whilst he and the company may not have brought sufficient heart and real feeling to a few of the earlier numbers, this did flourish and deepen as the story unfolded. His final solo ‘Bring Him Home’ was utterly penetrating and masterly. Trevor Nunn’s and John Caird’s original direction have been recreated for this 25th anniversary production, exquisitely by Laurence Connor and James Powell. With Owen-Jones at the helm they drive the story along at an

overwhelming pace. Like good chocolate and champagne the production is overwhelming in the joy it gives us.

The lack of humanity shown by some of the characters in this dark tale darkens that joy with our sympathy and emotion. Valjean is released from prison after nineteen years for stealing bread to feed a dying child. But he is let back into the world as a marked man. His captor, Javert is determined to return him back into captivity. Valjean, using a false name survives a new life. He runs a factory and is Mayor of his town. His own great strength gives him away, he is observed by Javert rescuing a man from beneath a fallen cart. Valjean is a man of great understanding and spirit, Javert is the other side of the coin. Earl Carpenter gives a commanding performance in the role, alone at the centre of the stage he, again fills the auditorium with his strong singing voice always managing to humanise his badness without falling into melodrama. Though there is a touch of controlled melodrama over the whole of the proceedings.

The amazing sensitivity of Rosalind James as Eponine was itself worth the price of the ticket. An extraordinary simple, believable and completely captivating creature that made our hearts bleed. Two more beautiful and gentle performances with clear and moving singing voices came from Katie Hall as Cosette and Madalena Alberto as Fantine There were charming and endearing performances from the children playing the girls’ younger selves and some great self possession from a very fine young Gavroche. The strength of the playing of student rebels Jon Robyns as the fervent leader and the elegant and determined Marius from Gareth Gates confirmed the life and dynamism of the production.

The gloom and beauty was not without its lighter moments and the great bosom of Lynne Wilmot made an important contribution to her highly amusing portrayal of Madame Thênardier in contrast with her skinny grabbing husband, an hilarious trickster from Ashley Artus . All this against so many wonderful stage pictures lit by yet again another master of his art, lighting designer Paule Constable. A truly masterly piece of theatre art.

Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan

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