Do You Hear the People Sing?

6 of us went to see Les Miserables on Saturday in the West End. I love living just over an hour from London! Only one of us had never seen it before, and by the time we came out of the theatre, between us we had seen it 24 times...

It's over 4 years since I last saw it, so it was about time I saw it again. It really was just as good the sixth time as it was the first! The guy playing Valjean was the understudy (we saw the matinee performance) but he was absolutely awesome - when he sang his diction was really clear so you didn't miss what he was singing, which as you may know is one of the things I look for. Javert, on the other hand, was less articulate, and I was worried that Cathy, who was the Les Mis rookie, would miss what he was singing about, but she said she followed everything OK.

Having listened to the music countless times over the past 20 years, I have to say I'm a bit fed up of most of the better known songs in this show. What I love, though, are the not-so-famous songs and interludes, in particular One Day More, the Act I Finale, and the Epilogue from Act II. [NB: Don't click these links if you don't want to know what happens! But if you haven't seen it, rectify that as soon as you can!] One Day More is possibly my favourite ever song: it combines the 'theme tunes' of all the main characters into one song and took months to write, but it was well worth the effort.

It turns out most of the people I work with haven't seen Les Mis either. I feel another trip to the Queens Theatre coming on...