Review: Les Misérables at the Liverpool Empire *****

September 1985. The wreck of the Titanic was discovered, England regained the Ashes, there was rioting in Handsworth and Brixton – and a new musical opened at London’s Barbican.

Reviewers were, in the main, unimpressed with Les Misérables. In fact, so brutal were some that industry bible The Stage – itself hugely enthusiastic about the show - was prompted to pen a searching editorial under the headline ‘the unpopularity of popular shows among the critics’.

But on the ground, Les Mis enjoyed packed houses and standing ovations, soon transferring to the West End proper where, give or take a few months of pandemic shutdown, it has remained for the past 40 years while going on to conquer Broadway and the world.

And as the French would say, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Because four decades on, Les Mis still attracts full houses and standing ovations – including at the Liverpool Empire this week where the first ever full-length amateur production in the northwest of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s behemoth was staged as part of the musical’s wider ruby anniversary celebrations.

With Cameron Macintosh’s blessing, and the backing of licensing agency Music Theatre International, 11 amateur productions are rolling out across the UK this summer.

Here in Liverpool, Les Mis has been brought to the stage by a four-way partnership of the Empire’s creative learning team, BOST, Romiley Operatic (based in Stockport) and Tip Top Productions from just across the border in Wrexham.

Above: A slideshow gallery of images from Les Miserables. Photos by Brian Roberts.

Quite the challenge, but quite the triumph too, and one they should all be extremely proud of.

With a 16-strong live orchestra in the pit and not one but two huge casts - drawn from across the production partners - alternating over the four-performance run, director James Lacey-Kiggins certainly had a lot of elements to marshal into a cohesive whole.

But he and the wider creative team achieved it in magnificent fashion, with Lacey-Kiggins (a force of nature) also seemingly finding time to have a hand in the set, wig and costume design.

The achievement is even more impressive when you consider the performers have other commitments – although some may want to ignore the adage ‘don’t give up the day job’.

One is Gareth Smith, dispensing optician in civvy street but a commanding presence – both physically and vocally – as Jean Valjean over all four performances at the Empire.

Smith channelled both power and real poignancy into a performance of Bring Him Home which reduced the Empire auditorium to pin-drop quietness.

He was perfectly matched by Liverpool Theatre School-trained Gary Jones (of Romiley Opera), also bestriding the four performances as Valjean’s dogged nemesis Javert. Being the baddie can be a bit of a thankless task, but Jones – apart from owning a beautifully resonant singing voice – also shone a light on the law enforcer’s fatal moral confusion.

Above: Jennifer Swanepoel as Fantine. Photo by Brian Roberts.

In fact, there wasn’t a weak link in the cast I saw (Saturday matinee's Team Victor) with significant musical talent in evidence both from the soloists and in the work’s rich and rousing ensemble numbers, including Do You Hear the People Sing? and One Day More.

Les Mis is, perhaps inevitably, a testosterone heavy affair, its few female characters treading – in the grand traditions of Victorian literature - the path of noble poor, prostitute or paragon on a pedestal.

Happily, like the devil, they also get some of the best tunes, with Jennifer Swanepoel as the tragic Fantine delivering a bravura performance of I Dreamed a Dream and Isabel Cosgrove tugging at the heartstrings with On My Own and A Little Fall of Rain, while Liverpool Empire Youth Theatre alumnus Annie Howarth showcased the sweetest of singing voices as Cosette.

Back in the sweeping story’s wider landscape, there was much to savour in the bantering ensemble of the idealistic young student revolutionaries – led by Will Goodwin’s Enjolras and with a fine-voiced Connor J Ryan as Marius, the sparky confidence of young Brodie Gene Robson as Gavroche, and the joyful partnership of Tony Prince and Beverley Ann Ross as the Thénardiers.

They threatened to pickpocket the show with Master of the House, presented as a delicious Hogarthian tableaux of winking bon vivant-ism, and later as painted grotesques as Beggars at the Feast, but Prince (an erstwhile Fagin, Sweeney Todd and Pontius Pilate for BOST) can also do dark and sinister too as he showed lurking in the shadowy corners of Paris's streets and sewers.

Amateur in name but professional in all other respects, this stirring production of Les Mis highlights why Macintosh was right when he decided to 'Let the People Sing'. Even if they had to wait 40 years to do it.