Two days in London started with meeting god-daughter from her train, and taking cards and flowers to the Norwegian Embassy. In th evening, we went to Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre.
Years ago, I heard an excellent radio adaptation of the book. Later, I read it. It clearly comes from the days when people had time to read and write pages and pages and even more pages of description and lengthy back stories, but there is an immensely powerful story in there. The musical had to bring this all down to a three hour show with lots of pace.
I can see why it's still going after 25 years. It concentrates on the core of the story, it's powerful, and though other musicals have catchier songs, these are so listenable to. Every performance was powerful. The energy and strength had us spellbound. The only thing I didn't like was making Thenardier, who is a ruthless, evil crook, into a kind of pantomime figure - but then, you need light relief in a musical and the book doesn't do funny.
It was the most exciting night I'd had in the theatre for years. It's a long time since I've stood up at the end of a performance, but I was on my feet for this one, and I wasn't the first. Soon, the whole house was on its feet. God-daughter said 'Wow!' all the way back to the hotel.
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4 comments:
I've never read the book, but my brother was in a very small amateur theater production of it, and so I intend to sometime.
I'm annoyed because a few years ago, I missed a performance of the musical version that one of my friends was in!
The book takes a lot of reading! But it's worth ploughing through if you skim through all the lengthy descriptions and stay with the characters.
I'm sorry it took so long for me to reply. I'm not sure I could teach her quietly. A trumpet is a trumpet. =D I have been playing since the begining of the school year last year.
You are right, if it was Captian England it would lose the point. Have you seen Captian America yet? I think its amazing! I didn'y expect it to be so good. But you have to watch the end after all the credits. That's where all the good stuff is!
Hi, Grace! Sorry to keep you waiting, I've been on holiday. Oh, well, we'll all just have to put up with Catkin and her trumpet. LYS used to play the trombone and we coped with that. Since you mentioned Captain America it seems to be everywhere, but I haven't seen it.
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