One Page More...Les Mis review (kind of)

On this blog, I write my last confession. Read it now, while I at last am typing. It's the story of Victor Hugo's original that got turned into a musical that everybody l...oves.

Ok, enough of that. Basically I'm a bit of a shrewd business woman (not that this makes me any money) but thought I'd save my plug of Victor Hugo's original novel Les Miserables (translated by Norman Denny) for the morning after the night before. In the sense of the huge 02 concert and subsequent end to the 25th anniversary tour.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm always slightly loathed to use the original author's name when it's a translation, however it just makes life easier so I'll be referring to Hugo when I really mean 'Denny's translation of Hugo'. Simples.

Unfortunately I'm a complete Sauer Kraut as I didn't have enough money to make the tour and by the time I had enough for the cheapest seats, they had only the £125 + ones left. Bitter to the bone.

However, I am going to try and make some notable comparisons between the 'original' Queen's production (combined with my own experience of a NODA winning school production) which we all know and love and the novel itself.

I've always been a huge fan of the show - there's just something about it and I've been meaning to read the novel for a few years. At 1200 pages it seemed somewhat daunting (especially as I'm a literature student so always have about 5 other novels on the go that I should be reading instead). Furthermore I'd been told that a stupid amount of the beginning of the novel is on the Bishop who, in the show, has a couple of lines and a dress and not much more.

However, I was amazed at just how captivating Hugo's exploration of 19th century France was. The text is long and is indeed sometimes arduous but that's part of the appeal. Many readers of the novel note the 'digressions' from the plot which, at the time, I initially willed to go faster. These 'digressions' however are so subtly integral to the plot and so essential to gain the full array of emotions that span across the book. I'm trying to avoid mentioning too much on the novel but I really just needed somewhere to sit here and shout PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.

It's clever in a way that many works of Literature in this age of the novella fail to achieve. Thought provoking and insanely moving, it even achieves what the show fails to do and makes me like little Cosette (I can't stand her in the show, I still hate older Cosette in the book). The characterisation is simply perfect; Valjean is more complex and less 'saintly' than the Schönberg & Boubill masterpiece as is the rest of the characters. Eponine isn't a whining, strangely attractive (for someone who the revolutionaries think is a 'boy climbing the barricade') teenage girl who you're quite glad to see shot (I am a tad heartless for an example of a theatre lover). She's a streetwise, hardnered criminal who takes a liking to Marius.]

If there's something that is ever so slightly irritating about the novel (shoot me now), it has to be Hugo's perhaps too blatant patriotism. As an English person, there's only so many times I enjoy being told that I'm not quite as amazing as the French and I have to admit I rolled my eyes once or twice (the shame, the shame). But once again (in a strange way?) this is part of the charm. I got the impression of Hugo sitting there digressing away and pouring his soul in to the novel. With his little beard and everything. I always think he looks a tad like Father Christmas.

Maybe he is and he gets out all his anger on the world through his art and is then happy for one evening in December...or not. Yes.

Back to what I was saying, um...

There's a darkness (that comes without a warning...to sing Les Mis...I'll shut up now) that is simply not captured in the show. The complexity of the relationship and chase between Javert and Valjean, for example, and the grotty underworld of the slums. I physically felt my heart racing during some of the descriptions. The syntax and flow of the language is absolutely beautiful - however similar it is to the original French, Denny's translation has to be commended for its ability to move.

This is such a self-satisfied, subjectively moved comment on the novel but words cannot describe how beautiful it is. Read it, read it, read it. Please!

Thinking about the production, my love for the Schönberg & Boubill musical too has increased. There's no way even the most prolific stage writer could capture the complete picture of Hugo's 19th century France. But these two do a ruddy good job - there's absolutely no way you appreciate any adaption until you've read the original. The tiniest throw away lines and symbols from the show are so embedded as an integral part of the novel. "But the tigers come at night" for example is so beautifully taken from Hugo's metaphor and Javert's stars is an utter masterpiece when taken from the context of the book. I couldn't possibly list even some of the subtle metaphors that a viewer who hasn't read the original is missing because it would ruin reading the book and the discovery of those subtitles for yourself.

Basically, just read the book. Please. I don't often say this but it really is a work of genius.

If you give me 1.5 million, I really will stop moaning.

I have a long list on why I should win the lottery and what I would spend my savings on. However, the Chanel clothing and London penthouse apartments have been moved a few places down the never-ending scribbles after finding a new expense.

It seems queer to take notice of a 'For Sale' sign on a building in these times. A less than affluent town like Southend is full of them; flats, shops, the concrete slabs of a 1960s office block. But I couldn't help but take heed of the large sign on Southend's New Empire Theatre (a less than attractive brick box placed conveniently just off the high street).

I've performed there in the past; I have fond memories of blaring out Potipher in a production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat in the middle of my GCSEs. But too with the ignorant singing comes memories of a crumbling building; paint peeling from the walls and that distinct smell of damp in the dressing room. Unsurprising seeing as it's empty for the majority of the year.

It's a shame. I'm not really the biggest fan of theatre in Southend (I'll probably get shot for saying that). There's no independent professional productions - we have a huge array of talent in the semi-professional units like Southend Shakespeare Company and Leigh Operatic and Dramatic Society. However, the 'best' professional productions we get at the Cliffs Pavilion or Palace Theatre are touring ghost productions of a few West End hits (namely The Woman in Black or Dreamboats and Petticoats). There's nothing that makes Southend renowned for its theatre despite a huge pool of talent coming from this area. I'd much rather pay an extra £11.90 (Lord bless student discounts) and go to the West End for some atmosphere than sit amongst the lifeless souls in a depressing town that's dangerous after 9pm.

So, the point of this rant? There's a potentially good venue sitting empty, up for a price of £1.5 million (a figure which surprised me seeing as it's in such a dire state and been without permanent residents for so long). There's mentions of cinema and gym companies being interested in the building (http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/8236391.Southend_s_Empire_to_become_a_cinema_again_/) but we've got a ruddy Odeon megaplex that fills about two seats for every showing and more gyms than you can throw a running machine at (how else does a bright orange, bleached blonde Chardonay keep her boobjob looking so good). It saddens me that a town supposedly full of 'creative' people seems unwilling to support a creative venue.

I'm crossing my fingers to win the lottery even more than usual now (despite the fact I never do and still haven't for this week bought a ticket). It'd be absolutely fantastic to get the venue working as a proper theatre - have a major overhaul and put on some worthwhile productions. I'd love to buy it, become artistic director and finally give this town and its folk a proper theatre, rather than another lifeless hall whose highlight is the yearly feature of the Chuckle Brothers in the Christmas pantomime.

Well, well, well...

I'm finally going to try this blogging malarcy! Having made several idle accounts in the past, this time it's for real...for now...maybe. I've had a rather productive week, so no time like the better and all that jazz?



Now, I'm not really sure what I should do here. Share my deepest, darkest emotions? Make a few witty remarks? Bore anyone who reads this (i.e. myself) with the meticulous details of my mundane life?



Well why not all three, with the witty remarks perhaps replaced by pure ignorance.



Well, I guess on with the mediocre moanings of my day. For those who don't know me I go to university in London and I study English Literature and History. My hobbies mainly revolve around the arts; theatre, reading, poetry, drawing, art blah blah. One of those lovey dovey fools with passions that revolve around pure subjectivity as they require much less thought


This week I started my second year at university having spent well over five months rotting infront of Jeremy Kyle with nothing to do but wallow in my own self pity. However, not content with the increasing work load, I decided to make myself extra busy which I (and my writing as you can tell) are badly suffering from with exhaustion. I've interned for varying periods of time at What's On Stage over the past few years and went back over the past week when I had a spare moment away from university. However, alongside that I had to secretly audition for the univeristy play, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I say 'secretly' because, convinced I would fall down the bottomless pit of failure and embarassment, I refused to tell anyone I had even thought about auditioning, let alone done it.

Amazingly I managed to a call back for both Titania and Hermia and was given the role of Hermia (I just re-read this 8 months later and clicked I played Titania, not Hermia - what brains!) which I'm really excited for.

Ahh I can't be bothered to make this a real blog at the moment as a grand total of fifteen hours sleep over the past five days has left me quite exhausted!
Toodles for now!