A sizzling heatwave certainly seemed the appropriate time to catch the hottest show of the year. Almost a decade since the last sell-out UK tour, Les Misérables is back on the road and it’s bigger, better and hotter than ever.
Producer Cameron Mackintosh - who was watching from the stalls on Friday night - doesn’t do things by halves and this was the full-blown Broadway production of Boublil and Schönberg’s enduring musical. Clocking in at three hours if you include the 15-minute interval, this is proper theatre whichever way you look at it.
With a 16-piece orchestra and an atmospheric set inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo (who wrote the original novel in the 1850s), this is ‘full fat’ musical theatre at its richest and most indulgent. Set against the backdrop of political and social unrest in 19th-century France, Les Misérables is a masterly and multi-layered story of unrequited love, passion, sacrifice, redemption and honour.
