Music
Les Miserables
By
Sep 19, 2008 - 6:57:31 AM

Well, they did it - and it was magnificent. Only ten weeks in which to  rehearse, a theatre some miles away from the School, and a cast of sixty, plus an 18-piece professional orchestra. Putting on the record-breaking musical, Les Miserables, as the school’s winter term production was never going to be an easy ride. In the end, Warminster packed the audiences in at the Merlin Theatre in Frome for five memorable performances from Wednesday to Saturday in late November.

For those few of you who haven’t experienced Les Miserables, the story is a thrilling one of love and redemption, played out against the chaos and violence of the student insurrection in 1832 Paris. Even though this was the ‘school edition’ and slightly shorter than the original version, its powerful and haunting music makes considerable demands on young, inexperienced singers.

The sets and staging of Warminster’s production were superb. The massive walls with evocative slatted windows and the revolutionaries’ ‘barricade’ – a huge amazing revolving structure - were used to great effect as the drama moved to its climax on the streets of 19th century Paris.

Everyone in the cast sang with enormous commitment and maturity, and the audiences responded with wild applause and standing ovations at every performance. The big choral scenes – the tremendous opening scene of the Chain Gang, the roystering in the Inn, the whores of Montreuil to name just three - were acted with considerable verve, assurance and athleticism, and yet the musicality of the performance never faltered.

Chris Patterson took the enormously demanding role of Valjean, the haunted protagonist of the story who spends his life trying to put right the wrong doings of his youth. The part of the implacable Javert, who seeks to be Valjean’s nemesis, was played with feline subtlety by Jacob Cooper. Megan Seaman was the tragic Fantine and Susie Joyce gave a moving performance as the heartbroken Eponine who dies on the barricades. The quality of the leading performers’ singing was impressive; Jacob Cooper and Susie Joyce both deserving a special mention for their clarity of diction.

There were some memorable performances too from Blair Collins Thomas and Amber Kennedy as the repellent M and Mme Thenardier, Elliot Gross as the heroic revolutionary Enjolras, and Tommy Morgan as the cheeky street urchin, Gavroche (although one hears that Chris Cox was excellent too!)

Congratulations to the whole cast on a performance we will all remember with pride for a long time to come. Thanks and congratulations too must go to Producer and Musical Director Brian Martineau, Warminster’s tireless Director of Music, who conducted both cast and orchestra from the keyboards, and to Damian Todres , Annabel Hooper and Matthew Stanway who so skillfully directed this most ambitious of school productions.