Les Misérables – School Edition

Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg. Lyrics: Herbert Kretzmer. Original French Text: Alain Boublil & Jean Marc Natel. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Director: Joanna Pearson. Musical Director: Shane Tooley.

Downlands College, Toowoomba, 28-30 April 2016

Producer and musical director Shane Tooley’s decision for Downlands College to mount Les Misérables paid off handsomely. With over 100 students on stage, an orchestra of 18 and 20 backstage, almost the entire school was on show and they did Boublil and Schonberg’s classic proud.

Les Miz is the perfect musical for school presentation – lots of characters, crowd scenes galore, and a story that espouses justice, compassion, love and redemption.

One of the great pluses of the production was the diction of the cast throughout. Their enunciation of Herbert Kretzmer’s brilliant lyrics was always clear and frankly far better than the recent commercial production of the musical.

Jeremy Beamish as the protagonist Jean Valjean sang the role with conviction and delivered a truly angelic purity to the hymn “Bring Him Home”. It was the vocal highlight of the production. Oscar Thelander matched his conviction with relentless zeal as Javert.

Best performance of the show came from Liam O’Hern as Thénardier. He sang and played the comedy well and eschewed vulgarity, letting the witty lyrics get the laughs and create the character. Katelyn Redinger as his better half, Madame Thenadier, was also a tower of strength. A big girl she projected bawdy and blousy with vigour. As Gavroche, Robert Baillie had the confidence of a seasoned pro and commanded the stage at every entrance.

Praise to the orchestra under Shane Tooley’s expert baton. They played the difficult score well and held the whole production together. Further praise should also go to the sewing team for the multitude of costumes which not only looked good but right, especially the “Lovely Ladies” sequence, and for Evan Hollis’s set design, in particular the ingenious use of wooden pallets to create the barricade.

Joanna Pearson’s direction kept it moving but some scenes were unnecessarily played behind a scrim-curtain and by closing the end of both acts with the cast in silhouette it only diminished the impact of the drama.

However, the most emotional moment for me was the barricade scene with the realisation that the students were of the same age as some of the students who fought in the real thing in 1832. It was terribly moving and terribly poignant!

Peter Pinne