Subculture Theatre Reviews - LES MISERABLES: THE ARENA SPECTACULAR

David Griffiths reviews Les Miserables: The Arena Spectacular.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Well, now I want to take a look at the
Miss Arena Spectacular that is doing the rounds in Australia
at the moment, I had the pleasure of being able
to see this in Melbourne and I believe it's heading
to Brisbane now. So if you are a Layms fan,
you do not want to miss this arena spectacular because
this is basically the best of the best playing the roles.

(00:31):
Basically what they have done with this is gather the
best talent from right around the world to play all
of the parts that we've known to love from lay Miers.
Of course, and it's interesting these days going along to
a performance of lay Miz like this because now there's
whole new fans. Of course, in the original times when

(00:54):
you go to see lay Miss, there was those that
had gone to see it when it was first performed
as a thing production. But now, of course you also
get people who saw the movie which came out what
thirteen years ago now with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman
in the role. So now there's a whole new breed

(01:17):
of fans going along and seeing le Mires. Now it
is difficult for me to talk about the cast because
the cast does change from night to night, but on
the night that I went to see it in Melbourne,
you had Bradley Jaden playing Javert and we had the
man that I think everybody wanted to see, Alfie Bau,

(01:38):
playing Jean Valjohn. Alfie Beau has made that role his own.
Over the last couple of decades, he has played the
role and some of the biggest theaters in the world.
He's gone on tour before. With this amazing arena spectacular

(01:58):
as well. There was a little bit of local flavor
added in there as well, with Marina Pryor of course
playing Madame Thenandia, and she was playing alongside Matt Lucas
of course from the Little Britain theme as well. In

(02:21):
if you've seen any of the DVDs or anything from
over the years, you will know that he's been playing
the Nadia for a while now and does it brilliantly well.
So we were very, very blessed to have him in
Melbourne and to see him and Marina Pryor. I said
to someone afterwards, if you'd ever told me that there
would have been a time that I would have seen
one of the stars of Little Britain performing alongside Marina Pryor,

(02:44):
I would have told you that you were crazy, but
it did. It absolutely works. Now for those wondering what
this looks like as arena spectacular, it does feel more
like an ode to the music. There's a massive amount
of lighting, and of course there's a live orchestra. They
do act out the scenes of like you do get

(03:08):
the general gist of the storyline, but because of the
way that it appears with the Arena Spectacular, it probably
does help if you know the storyline before you go in.
They they basically go through all of the songs from
the production, but there's not a lot of room to

(03:29):
move for the actors. So if you've been along recently
and seen Jesus Christ Superstar and seeing how energetic and
that show is, you don't get that with this because
there's kind of limits on what they can do with
the space that they're using for these performers. Also, this

(03:53):
sounds weird, but I love the lighting of this show.
But also there was parts that I don't think the
lighting did justice either. So when they did things like
the shootout at the barricades, I thought that worked really
well with the lighting and everything like that. And there's
this amazing lighting kit that kind of looks like a
transformer robot that comes down from the ceiling and stuff

(04:18):
like that at various times. But to be honest, I
don't think they lit the barricades well enough during those scenes,
because it was only after the final number and all
of the house lights came up that I was actually
able to see how detailed the barricades were with like

(04:39):
bicycles and stuff like that. You couldn't actually see that
during the actual performance itself. To me, this feels much
more like a celebration of the music, and when you've
got people like I mentioned before, like Alfie Bo doing
the numbers, you don't mind as much. I mean, I

(05:02):
know people in the past have talked about some of
the epic sets that there's been for laimers right around
the world. This to me feels more like a celebration
of the music, being able to celebrate people like Ashana
Coe playing Epony and just different things like that. Like

(05:23):
the the basic storyline is there, but I do feel
that because of the way that it's staged, unless you
knew that storyline, there would probably be little things that
you would miss. And it's really funny because one of
the things that becomes really apparent when you're watching it
in this way is that the the storyline of Laymiers
is kind of weird in that majority of the main

(05:47):
cast you don't get to meet until almost halfway through
the production. It's it's kind of a weird way that
this this play was put together in the first place.
But look, you will be wowed. I've I've got to say,
I'm still thinking about the performances of people like Alfie

(06:08):
Bow and Bradley Jaden. They were just amazing. There was
times during this performance where you see the spit flying
out of Bradley Jaden's mouth just because he's so into
his character and so dramatic. He's putting all of his
emotions on the line. But what I was going to
say before about losing a bit of the storyline, you

(06:29):
kind of lose the storyline of how Jean Valjehn goes
from being a prisoner to suddenly being a mayor because
you don't have that way of showing things with any
dialogue or anything like that. During this production. It kind
of jumps very very quickly. So if you didn't know

(06:50):
the story of Late Miws, you'd probably be a little
bit confused, but look, this is an amazing production to
go along and see. Like I said, it looks spectacular.
The performers are all brilliant. I can't stress that enough.
The performance that I went to was just absolutely amazing.

(07:10):
The vocals, the orchestra, everything. It does give you a
whole new perspective of Lei Miz. It certainly celebrates the
music of Lei miss. So if you get a chance,
go along and check this out. Don't hold me to
the fact that you're going to have people like Alfie
Bowl on the stage on the night that you go,
because the cast does revolve over the nights. But I

(07:33):
think I was just lucky to go on the night
when the A team were on because everything seemed to work.
The comedic into play between Matt Lucas and Marina Pryor
was fantastic, The amazing vocals throughout the entire night with spectacular.
So if you love Lei Mi's, if you love musical theater,

(07:54):
go along and check out this arena spectacular Wallet's in
Australia