Grade: B- 

It’s billed as an all-new production, a revamping of the beloved Boublil-Schoenberg musical that first took the world by storm in 1985 and, in its 25th anniversary tour, is still going strong. 

The show, of course, is Les Miserables. Based on the 1862 Victor Hugo novel, it tells the story of Jean Valjean, a poor but kindhearted man who’s imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread and after his release is forced to break parole in order to rebuild a life for himself. 

In that attempt he’s successful, becoming a wealthy factory owner under an assumed name. But the obsessive police inspector Javert finds out and proceeds to pursue him across France and the better part of two decades. 

Of course, this only begins to tell the tale of this sprawling story, partly set against the ill-fated Paris Uprising of 1832. 

And that’s one of the problems with it. While the musical has one of the most beautiful, stirring scores in the musical theatre canon, the story itself is confusing and unfocused, with too many characters and too many years squeezed into a three-hour package. As a result, the characters themselves are left little room to breathe, and only get lost in the grand historical events swirling around them.

This production tried to address some of these concerns by making the storytelling clearer, the motivations more true. But there’s only so much you can do when you restrict your changes to the staging, and leave the book of the musical untouched.

One of these changes was to dump that famous turntable in order to fill the stage with action and make the performances more fluid. In that respect, it helped. But at a high cost, causing us to lose touch with many of the key moments in the story.

For example, the battle near the end of Act II is now viewed entirely from behind the barricades, and while this does keep us in the rebels’ point-of-view, it prevents us from seeing the tragic death of Gavroche.

They also replaced some of the sets with projected backgrounds so as to give the entire space more realism and depth. Personally, I was underwhelmed. While highly effective in giving a three-dimensional feel to Valjean’s escape through the sewers of Paris, the projections were used far too rarely to make much of a difference to the production as a whole.

A few of the performances helped make up for these weaknesses. J. Mark McVey was everything you’d want in a Valjean: strong, sympathetic, yet very natural in his acting style, and with a gorgeous set of pipes that nearly stopped the show during his signature song “Bring Him Home.” 

Andrew Varela as the odious Javert was excellent as well, with a rich operatic quality to his voice and a dark, looming intensity in his performance. 

But it was Chasten Harmon as Eponine who really blew me away. She gave this character of the streets a rare human quality and, with her more pop-like vocal style, belted “On My Own” right out of the park (I’m getting shivers right now just thinking about it). 

Many of the other performers let me down. Justin Scott Brown as Marius and Jenny Latimer as Cosette made unconvincing lovers and were merely serviceable in the humdrum presentation of their songs. 

Betsy Morgan as Fantine was especially disappointing. “I Dreamed A Dream” has been a showcase for powerhouse singers long before Susan Boyle surprised the world with her performance of it on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. But Morgan did not do justice to it at all, layering on way too much vibrato and giving an almost screechy quality to the high notes.

Is this 25th anniversary production as new and improved as other critics have claimed? Not in my opinion.

But most die-hard most fans of the show simply won’t care. They’ll go for the soaring music (the live orchestra did sound lush), the stunning costumes and sets, the sheer epic scale of the story. And for them, this production will more than please.

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