Do You Hear The People Sing?

Today Les Misérables is 32 years young. To put that in context we need to jump on board our time machines and travel back to 1985, where the year started with the 6th Doctor Who, Colin Baker, repelling The Attack of the Cybermen…

Oh, and Vodaphone launched the first mobile phone in the UK

And the internet’s Domain Name System was created

One central theme of Les Miz, the struggle for self-determination and freedom of expression against the forces of oppression, would have certainly struck a note with the newly sworn in 'General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.' Try fitting that on your conference name badge, especially when you then have to fit in: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. 

Gorbachev’s policies of 'glasnost' and 'perestroika' rapidly led to the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War, and by the end of 1989 its grimmest and most familiar symbol, the Berlin Wall, was also smashed to pieces

That autumn, Boublil and Schoenberg’s second masterpiece, Miss Saigon, had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (where it ran for ten years, doubling the previous record) but no matter how many great new shows took a foothold in the West End (and beyond) Les Miz continued to flourish…

Through a Gulf War

A US President called Bush

Through six more Doctor Who’s

Three Popes

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan

The Simpsons

The creation of The Premiership

John Major and Bill Clinton

The birth of Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and Guns N’ Roses

E-mail, the iPhone, Facebook and Netflix

...but it was not all Chateau Lafite and foie gras

I worked on the show for much of the first twenty years of the London Production, and I recall that one Christmas I was summoned back from a party of epic proportions to be told that the show had to close because business was flagging. Emboldened by the afternoon’s festive refreshments, I explained that the show was just having a wobble, that I had the figures to prove it, and if anyone wanted further proof they should come to the theatre with me that evening: “And if half the audience isn’t younger than the show, take the ******* show off.”

…another US President called Bush

Another Gulf War

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron

Barack Obama

A female Doctor Who!!!

...Vladimir Putin

Thirty-two years young today, and I personally would argue that the appeal of Les Miz is stronger than at any time in its history …because history itself never moves in a straight line

Donald Trump

BREXIT

Emmanuel Macron 

“Do you hear the people sing?”

“Singing a song of angry men?”

 But listen, don’t take my word for it…

Try to buy a ticket!