The media hypemonster will shortly begin shoving the musical film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s depressingly awful tale of Love And Death In The French Revolution down our collective throats.<\/p>\n
I read the book years ago. Didn’t like it.<\/p>\n
Hollywood has had a couple of stabs at the\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables story over a bunch of decades. I haven’t liked any of them.<\/p>\n
But in 1990 when I started work in Social Services in central Bristol, a colleague – Brian – had a CD set of the Official Soundtrack of the Cameron Macintosh stage musical.<\/p>\n
And Brian gave me a lift to\/from work every day, because he had a car and I was a pauper. We didn’t speak much. The Les Mis CDs did the talking.<\/p>\n
Before many days had passed I found myself captivated by the songs. The lyrics, so beautifully sung – pronounced so clearly – held my attention. The emotion that the songs presented caught my imagination, and I found myself getting drawn in.<\/p>\n
This stage musical soundtrack was light-years from the Depeche Mode\/Pink Floyd-infested musical world that I was used to.<\/p>\n
A couple of years later I had my own car; my own copy of the\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables official soundtrack nestled uneasily between Radiohead’s Pablo Honey and Portishead’s Dummy.<\/p>\n
A handful of years ago I went to see\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables in London.<\/p>\n
The stage production, the use of space, the use of light, the set design (and the way it moved to make different shapes)… they all combined to blow me away.<\/p>\n
And pouring gently across the awesome visual spectacle was the soundtrack that I had grown to love – the breathtaking emotional sounds of love and longing and loss.<\/p>\n
I haven’t yet seen the new\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables film, though it has Russell Crowe in it, so my judgement is already tainted.<\/p>\n
When the mainstream media hypemachine begins firing shotgun-like GO AND SEE THIS FILM messages at us, it will be too easy to lose just how lovely the musical story is.<\/p>\n
So here’s a very different version of the musical; as you would expect from me, a non-mainstream version.<\/p>\n
This is one man performing all of the main parts, in a highly edited medley, of the\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables musical.<\/p>\n
Some of his parts are stronger than others, his Innkeeper (a character I strongly dislike) is amusing, and his female characters are stunning.<\/p>\n
Enjoy.<\/p>\n