Review Roundup: LES MISERABLES at the Barbican!

Cameron Mackintosh's current touring production of Les Miserables will run at London's Barbican Theatre, it's English-language birthplace in 1985, for 22 performances through October 2, 2010. A Queens Theatre staple for nearly 22 years in the West End, this new run will mark the first time in London that the same musical has run simultaneously.

The touring production premiered in Cardiff in December 2009 and has since successfully played in Manchester, Norwich and Birmingham. It will continue to run in 2010 in Edinburgh, Paris, Bristol, Salford and Southampton.

This new production features direction by Laurence Connor andJames Powell and a new set deign by Matt Kinley. Costumes are by Andreane Neofitou, with contributions from Christine Rowland, lighting is by Paule Constableand sound is by Mick Potter.
The production stars John Owen-Jones as Jean Valjean, Earl Carpenter as Javert and Gareth Gates as Marius. As BroadwayWorld previously reported, a new live cast recording of this production will be released this spring.

Les Miserables has played the Queen's Theatre in the West End now for twenty-four years - the longest running musical in West End history - having generated a profit of a cumulative £30 million. The show enjoyed a 16-year run on Broadway from 1987 - 2003, and was revived again in 2006. This is in addition to the countless number of tours and licensed productions throughout the world, cast albums, t-shirts etc. that have made the musical its own industry.

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Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage.com: "...this new version nonetheless breathes its own fire and dry ice, and not only tells a fantastic story, but also, as I said on that long ago, first 'first night,' is as brilliantly coloured as it is emotionally demanding...The act-clinching finales are as thrilling as ever they were, beautifully staged, the complex narrative twining of "One Day More" and finally the redemptive, celestial transformation of deathbed reunions and farewells announcing the hero's spiritual salvation and the affirmation of the human spirit in social and political optimism. You still need those Kleenex."

David Benedict, Variety: "....the material remains largely the same but direction, orchestrations and, chiefly, the design are new. Helmers Laurence Connor and James Powell clearly have no idea how to bring out detail in the performers, but designers Matt Kinley and Paule Constable's commanding vision sweeps skepticism aside...The biggest single shift is the exclusion of the original production's equally beloved and parodied visual/dramatic trademark: the revolve...Kinley's work is more suggestive. Instead of dully setting up precise locations, the projections of Hugo's paintings splashed up against an angled back wall have a hazily impressionistic Turner-esque quality...The result is richly atmospheric...Mackintosh's casting is, as expected, adroit. Earl Carpenter has a thundering voice that gives Javert true power and Gareth Gates brings sweet, well-sung sincerity to Marius...Mackintosh's new version smartly walks the line. There's enough new vitality to justify the re-think without losing the sensibility of the original."

Henry Hitchings, London Evening Standard: "It's earnest and sensational, yes, but also a beautiful evocation of yearning and redemption, flushed with romance and touched by a very real darkness...The star is John Owen-Jones, who's breathtakingly good as the hero Jean Valjean. But there is expert work all around him - from Earl Carpenter, Rosalind James and a crowd-pleasingly passionate Gareth Gates.Almost as arresting are Matt Kinley's fresh designs, which draw on Hugo's own artworks and are gorgeously lit by Paule Constable. Much of what made the original version famous has been retained, though the scale is somewhat reduced. If some of the stately sumptuousness of the original has been lost, a greater degree of intimacy compensates. While enthusiasts are likely to need no prompting to seize upon the opportunity to renew acquaintance with Les Misérables, this production will also entrance anyone encountering the show for the first time."

Lyn Gardner, guardian.co.uk: "Les Misérables is a rousing, shamelessly entertaining evening of tuneful and spectacular popular theatre...The backdrop of Hugo's own smudgy, Turneresque drawings give the production a filmic quality...With songs this familiar, the cast have their work cut out to make a distinctive mark, and some fight better than others at the musical barricades. There are some slightly odd renditions of the more famous tunes, as if the performers are looking over their shoulder, a little fearful of the ghosts. But the ensemble is great, and John Owen-Jones is a superb Jean Valjean, providing the evening with its moral centre without a note of priggishness in his ripe, burnished voice."

Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph: "The show was rapturously received and all the old magic is intact...Matt Kinley's simpler designs, with evocative backdrops inspired by Victor Hugo's atmospheric drawings and paintings, work superbly...But what's really memorable is its sheer passion and pace...there are many moments that send shivers of excitement racing down the spine, others when it is overwhelmingly moving...There are cute children in rags, there are fervent revolutionary songs of hope, there are soaring anthems delivered by the lovelorn, the broken-hearted and the misunderstood....The company give the piece their all. John Owen-Jones brings great heart, passion and a tremendous voice to the tormented Jean Valjean, who escapes from the chain-gang only to be hunted down by the remorseless policeman Javert, given a memorably sinister, doom-laden performance by Earl Carpenter. The latter's final exit is perhaps the most spectacular in modern theatre."

Ray Bennett, Reuters: "Monotonous inflated music with banal lyrics is blasted out in an aggressively unpleasant production that treats audience members as if they were trapped in a wind tunnel. Perhaps once it was sung better, and the 'American Idol' style of belting has infected it...There's a woman named Fantine (Madaleno Alberto) who has a child named Cosette (Katie Hall), but Fantine suffers and dies, and Cosette mostly just suffers. They each proclaim their misery in songs of yearning including a shrieked version of the hit 'I Dreamed a Dream'...The show is sung-through so that ordinary conversation also is delivered in full voice, which only adds to the sense of being bombarded by perhaps talented vocalists who have been encouraged never to lower their tones...With no set changes, it propels along and its pulsating drive nullifies whatever charms the show might have had. No doubt there will be many who will have a different reaction, but from here it's entirely appropriate that the English translation of the title is 'The Wretched.'"

Sam Smith, Music OHM: In Laurence Connor and James Powell's new production, the staging is on a slightly smaller scale, but this only makes the experience all the more intimate and powerful....the staging is slick with the barricades and other props rolling on and off with ease...The iconic One Day More is effective as the soloists sing from different levels before joining on the main stage to march forward, lines of people zig-zagging though each other as the ensemble advances. The powerful Stars benefits from introducing a bridge and lanterns to the stage, while the execution of Javert's suicide must constitute one of the theatrical coups of the century...the universal standing ovation was thoroughly deserved."

Mark Shenton, The Stage: "...the show comes with a new propulsive momentum, uninterrupted by lumbering set changes. That usefully refocuses the emphasis on the narrative rather than the spectacle. But if the scale has shrunk a bit, there's nothing small about John Owen-Jones, who brings the same serious dignity and vocal heft to Valjean as Colm Wilkinson originally did. As Valjean is relentlessly pursued by Earl Carpenter's Javert for a crime he committed long ago and has already served time for, Claude-Michel Schonberg's music once again offers a soaring accompaniment. Gareth Gates, Madalena Alberto and Rosalind James lack the individuality of original cast members Michael Ball, Patti LuPone and Frances Ruffelle as Marius, Fantine and Eponine respectively, and can't always resist the urge to pitch their power ballads into X-Factor styling. But this remains a show with more than a little extra. It's thrilling to see it back where it all began."

Sheila Johnston, The Arts Desk: "...the rejuvenated edition at the Barbican is enjoyable and fleet of foot and last night displayed few signs of its advanced years. The absolute masterstroke is the production design, by Matt Kinley. His evocative and emotionAl Turneresque style inspires the Barbican's ink-smudged backdrops which at key moments become animated back-projections, vividly inserting the characters in the Paris sewers or plunging them into the Seine's watery depths...The Barbican boasts a good, solid cast. John Owen-Jones has already played Big Valjean in the West End and on Broadway, and there can be no faulting him here."

 

Photo Credit: Michel LePoer Trench

 

 

 

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