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ARIEL Theatre Company’s schools
production of Les Miserables at Chequer Mead
last week (9 - 13 November) delivered a tour de force which brought
the entire
audience to its feet in well-deserved tribute to a production of
quite
astonishing power.
The world’s most popular and successful musical, the dark themes of
Les Mis are
not necessarily an obvious choice for a teenage cast, but the ages
of the young
singers were instantly forgotten as they delivered nuanced
performances of quite
astonishing maturity.
The rugged good looks and marvellous voice of Chris Brown made Jean
Valjean’s
transformation from embittered convict to heroic old age both
credible and
infinitely touching, and his death scene left not a dry eye in the
house.
Ben Hopkins had the physical presence to carry off the role of
Javert, the
policeman so consumed with the letter of the law he cannot serve
justice, and a
powerful voice which captured all Javert’s implacable desire to hunt
down his
quarry. The suicide scene in which he eventually realised that
Valjean was a
better man than he could ever be, was particularly effective.
Marisha Jenkins performed and sang beautifully in the role of
Fantine, the
abandoned mother of Cosette, who turns to prostitution to support
her child, and
her performance of I Dreamed a Dream and her deathbed duet with
Valjean captured
all the poignancy of a character so cruelly conspired against by
fate and an
unjust world.
Les Mis is a show you don’t so much leave humming the tunes as
counting the
corpses, so the characters of the appalling innkeeper Thenardier and
his wife
bring much-needed comic relief.
And what a pairing they had in Richard Gill and Yasmine Bettine, who
were
simply terrific as the most ghastly villains in the hospitality
business, and
who are both surely destined for a career in musical theatre.
Bethan Roles, as the grown-up Cosette, succeeded in pulling off a
difficult
double, by both looking like an angel and singing like one too, and
her lovely
soprano voice soared effortlessly and touchingly as she declared her
love for
student Marius on the eve of the students’ revolt.
Marius, played by George Martingale was a handsome enough hero to
make Cosette’s
instant attraction entirely plausible, and his rendition of Empty
Chairs at
Empty Tables, in which he mourned the deaths of his companion
revolutionaries,
was particularly affecting.
There was a beautiful performance too from Lorna Heppell as the
streetwise
Eponine whose unrequited love for Marius leads her to join him at
the barricades
and whose death in his arms is one of the saddest moments of a dark
story.
And special credit must go to the youngest members of the cast.
Millie Cummings
gave a sweet-voiced performance of Castle on A Cloud as the young
Cosette, and
Jarrod Hopson was a wonderfully cheeky Gavroche.
The show which had a large supporting cast of students, factory
workers, and
‘lovely ladies’ was marvellously well served by its chorus, and in
particular by
Alex Paton, as Grantiere, and Robert Hadden as Enjolras, who
captured all the
idealism of doomed youth.
As the audience dispersed, the night was peppered with plaudits, in
which the
words “marvellous”, “fantastic” and “quite amazing” featured very
large indeed.
Geraldine Durrant
N.B.
I have been reviewing productions at Chequer Mead since the theatre
opened, and
I can only endorse what one member of your audience said to me last
week - this
show has taken amateur productions in East Grinstead to a whole new
level.
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