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The week before the February Half-term is always a special one in the Wellington Calendar, bringing as it does the annual school musical, and this year it really was an extra-special one. For four glorious nights the GWA provided a glittering stage for a triumphant production of the iconic, yet always challenging, Les Misérables. As Director Nick Huntington noted, despite its French 19th Century setting, Les Misérables remains socially relevant, its exploration of inequality, poverty, and the fight for justice continues to resonate around the word in its many international productions.
That Les Misérables is now in its 40th year, and the longest-running show in London’s West End, provides a significant challenge to any school brave enough to take it on. How can new life be breathed into a now familiar story, how may well-loved numbers be performed in a way to seem as heard for the very first time? This young and diverse Wellington cast provided answers to those conundrums in the most emphatic way.
Matthew L and Josh C were excellent in their roles of Valjean and Javert, their fierce and decades-long feud intelligently rendered, while Harriet W as Fantine and Flo H as her daughter Cosette provided sensitivity and pathos. Toby H and Lisa K’s portrayals of Marius and Eponine combined passion and the pains of unrequited love, and Sam G and Darcey H were all comic malevolence in their depictions of the wicked Thenardiers. Congratulations must also go to the tireless ensemble who brought movement, pace and brio to the show, and in particular to Rufus S and Guy L whose energetic and compelling performances as Enjorlas and Gavroche were real crowd pleasers.
In his programme notes, Musical Director, Sean Farrell, had this to say: ‘Les Mis is a masterwork of the theatre. Always familiar, but never repetitive; one foot in the oldest traditions of staged music, and another in the contemporary world, there is no wonder that it continues to thrill and captivate audiences and cast alike so long after its conception.’ Wellington’s 2024 production most certainly did that, and thanks and congratulations must go to the whole cast for a show that will not only live long in the memory, but which also set terrifyingly high standards for Wellington Musical Theatre.
View the full gallery HERE.
