Les Miserables

I thought I'd kickstart my London posts with my Les Mis experience (even though I only watched it on my 6th day there) since it was the highlight of my trip!:)

If you've known me for a while then you'd know that Les Mis is my favourite musical and I've been wanting to go to West End to see it live for ages! When Mum first told me she'd decided to bring us to London this year I was jumping for joy. I'm essentially striking something off my bucket list!

In the few hours before the show started, I was literally hopping around with excitement and going around with the silliest smile ever that made my sister roll her eyes at me.

Finally getting to Queen's Theatre was thrilling!

We'd gotten the second most expensive stall seats cos this musical was our priority, out of all the shows we were going to watch.

By the way, while deciding which seats to buy, I found this site called TheatreMonkey quite useful. People who have sat in various seats in different theatres give reviews of their view of the stage so you know how to choose the best seat of your price range:)

And so this is my view of the stage from stalls row L:

 I could see everyone's faces clearly and wasn't blocked by the overhang of the first circle (which you can see a bit of at the top of the photo)

I got a programme and it was £4, so much cheaper than Singapore which charges $25 for programmes!

Cast assessment:

Valjean (Daniel Koek) - Too rough and angry. I feel that his character ought to be kinder and gentler. He's got the powerful voice but he didn't get the character right to me. Also he rushed through the soliloquy far too quickly. He really did Bring Him Home excellently though (his falsetto is far kinder sounding than his real voice. And Valjean really shouldn't be so angry after he's reformed.)

Javert (Tam Mutu) - Excellent. Perfection. Bravo. I wish I could watch him again. Best Javert ever! (Ok 10th and 25th anniversary Javerts were really excellent too). Powerful voice, powerful acting. I have to say he outshone Valjean quite a bit. By the way, if you didn't already know, Tam Mutu is engaged to Sierra Boggess (who played Christine in the 25th anniversary Phantom) and I swear their kids will have the most beautiful voices ever! Anyway I'd previously heard very good reviews about him, and what with that and the fact that he's Sierra's fiance, I was extremely excited to watch him. And he certainly did not disappoint.

Fantine (Na-Young Jeon) - Lovely sweet voice though she seemed to start out slightly weak but she definitely improved a lot further on. Stiff acting though (particularly stiff I think, cos I usually don't really notice acting very much)

Eponine (Carrie Hope Fletcher) - Strong voice, good acting. I'd have liked A Little Fall of Rain sung slightly slower though (maybe cos it's my favourite song so I want it to last a looooong time haha). Anyway, Carrie is a super friendly person:) I forgot how exactly I found out about her prior to watching the show but I'd previously stumbled upon her and her youtube channel and thought she was a lovely person, so I was also excited to watch her.

Cosette (Samantha Dorsey) - Lovely voice

Little Cosette (Caoimhe Judd) - Alright. Good but I preferred 10th anniversary little Cosette. 

Marius (Rob Houchen) - Good voice, suits the character well. Empty Chairs & Empty Tables was particularly haunting.

Enjolras (Anton Zetterholm) - Nice strong voice! Better than Marius. Very good for rallying people hahaha

Gavroche (Ilan Galkoff/Jake Poolman/Ewan Rutherford, not sure who was playing him that night sorry) - Considering he's a little kid, he was totally phenomenol. Excellent voice, excellent acting! 

Thenardiers (Cameron Blakely & Wendy Ferguson) - Wonderfully entertaining and hilarious

Les Mis has a circular stage that rotates in certain scenes; such a magnificent idea for smooth transitions as well as showing people walking on long journeys and interacting with different people while still remaining at the centre of the stage.

Also, the actors do slow motion in certain parts for dramatic effect and gosh are they all so good at slow mo acting:) And the ensemble was so excellent and vocally strong!

One tiny thing that bothered me a little was that Cosette and Eponine switched hair colours when they were young and when they grew up. Young Cosette was blonde and young Eponine was brunette but that was vice versa for the grown up versions. Not that it affected the performance but I like continuity in things like that.

I went stagedooring after. 

It took a while before I could push myself out of the crowd of people exiting the theatre and by the time I got to the stagedoor, most of the guys had left so it was mainly just the girls streaming out. And with their coats pulled up and faces turned down, it was difficult to spot their faces. I'm pretty sure I saw Anton Zetterholm just as I reached the stagedoor but he practically ran away down the street and it's rude to chase cast members so I just waited for the rest. I really hoped to catch Tam Mutu, but he never came out from the theatre, and when I asked a girl beside me if he'd already left, she told me that he's usually first out and simply runs away, so there's very little chance of catching him. 

Anyway, I got autographs from the actors/actresses who played Fantine, Valjean, Feuilly, Cosette, Eponine, Mdm Thenardier and that's quite a lot of main characters so I guess it was pretty successful:)

 Carrie Hope Fletcher plays Eponine and she's the sweetest person ever!

Na-Young Jeon plays Fantine

Daniel Koek plays Valjean

Daniel Koek was the last to come out and when I asked him for a photo, Mum couldn't get the camera to work properly so we just kept standing there smiling at the silly camera for ages but he was totally nice and patient:)

There seemed to be quite a lot of Singaporeans at the stagedoor that night, though I didn't know any of them. I was so excited I was the first person to pounce on all the actors so all the others at the stagedoor were watching me quite amusedly hahaha

The entire night was so blissful:)
We walked home from the tube singing Stars at the top of our voices like 3 drunken people haha.
I wish I could watch it again and again!

First picture taken off Google.