The current London cast appearing at the Palace Theatre is thought to be one of the greatest ever to perform the show - with stars like Joanna Ampil, Simon Bowman and Peter Corry among it's cast!! I was lucky enough to go and see the show in London this summer and was (of course) ecstatic!!! What follows is my own little review of the show I saw along with a few pictures of the fabulous cast!!
Ecstatic doesn't really convey how I was feeling to be going to see Les Mis in London with a cast I had heard nothing but the highest praise of! So needless to say even being told that on that particular evening Simon Bowman and Barry James were not performing I was still shaking in my seat! We saw Andrew Morton as Valjean and despite a shaky beginning he had soon captured my attention fully! His voice is one of the most amazing I have heard and was well worth seeing!! We were lucky to see Peter Corry again as Javert and as per usual his "Suicide" made me cry!! The man is a genius as far as I'm concerned and is one of the closest performers I have seen to Philip Quast's portrayal of Javert!! After watching the NT's production of "Oklahoma!" countless times I was eager to see what Rebecca Thornhill would be like and I wasn't disappointed! Her Fantine was spot on - tragic but not weak and her voice left me holding my breath! The Thenardiers were, as always, absolutely hilarious - drawing yells and shouts from the audience.
Then came the section my friends and I had been awaiting - Paris! Since listening to MS and the recent JCS recording we had developed a real desire to see Joanna Ampil live and when we heard she was in Les Mis we of course jumped at the chance, and she didn't let us down! As someone who doesn't particularly like Eponine's character I was blown away by Joanna's performance! Then came Marius, Niklas Andersson, about whom I have only three words I can say! OH MY GOD!!! His is one of the best portrayals of Marius I have ever seen - definitely on a par with the definitive Marius himself, Michael Ball!! The performance of ALFOR made me want to cry - their rendition (Niklas and Joanna) was so sweet, including Marius kissing Eponine just before she dies. The entire theatre held it's breath right up until the end of the song. Awwwwwwwww!!! Zoe Curlett's Cosette was another great performance in a show that for me only had one down point. Jason McCann's Enjolras was powerful, strong, he hit all the right notes in the right order but I didn't really like him! His voice was superb although in my opinion he had a tendency to shout the odd phrase as opposed to sing it, which would be fine if he didn't sound like the cookie monster when he was shouting!!!! Anyway, in a production that had no other faults even Jason's performance was a very very good one!!! Without a doubt this current cast is one of, if not, the best casts ever to perform this show! If you can go see it if not, visit the web site at the bottom of this page. Not the same as seeing it live but it come's pretty close!!!
Jason McCann
Jason McCann as Enjolras with Niklas Andersson
Simon Bowman as Jean Valjean with Alice Connor as Little Cosette
Simon Bowman
Simon Bowman and Zoe Curlett as Cosette
Peter Corry as Javert
Rebecca Thornhill as Fantine
Rebecca Thornhill
Simon Bowman and Rebecca Thornhill
Joanna Ampil as Eponine
Niklas Andersson as Marius
Zoe Curlett, Niklas Andersson and Joanna Ampil
For more information on the current London cast why not check out MaE and Linn's Les Miserables Page - they have loads of pictures, sound clips and oodles more!!!