Les Misérables

Not too pumped about that. We'll see. I'm sure he'll be better than Drew Sarich, but that's not hard.

Following Rebecca Caine's Twitter is quite hilarious right now.

She did some major clean up in her Twitter months ago, and similar on her FB weeks ago. Lots of people were deleted from her follow/friend list. Including Nick Jonas. Now his friends/fans/whatever are FURIOUS at her because she's such a hater, and such an old nobody. Who is she to delete NICK JONAS?? She's feeding the trolls (on purpose, of course) by re-tweeting their negative comments about her. Like "Who is this Rebecca Caine woman? Was in les mis 100 years ago or something". And I think she highly enjoys it all.

https://twitter.com/#!/RebeccaCaine

(she's also officially saying she has nothing against him, she just unfollowed him on Twitter. Just for the record)


ETA: ROTFLSHMSFOAIDMT!!

Porteña wrote:

starryeyed wrote:Apparently Ramin Karimloo will be the new Valjean in London. Not entirely impressed by the casting if true...

That's... wow.

I mean, I know that current Spanish Valjean is only 30 years old and is (as I've been told) superb in it, but it's just hard to picture Karimloo on that role.

We'll just have to wait.

Seriously?

Er...does this mean Bring Him Home will now be sung with Valjean's shirt open and with extra growls to, um, "rock it up"?

I think it's practically confirmed. Someone was at some private event last night and tweeted "Just heard Ramin singing BHH - perfect Valjean for 2012" and then the article came out about the rumour. His fangirls are claiming to have guessed it long ago during one of their many conversations with him anyway that's beside the point, it seems to be true.

Also, in regards to RC, it's great she's taking it in her stride but I know I certainly wouldn't - some of the comments directed towards her are brutal!

operafantomet wrote:Following Rebecca Caine's Twitter is quite hilarious right now.

She did some major clean up in her Twitter months ago, and similar on her FB weeks ago. Lots of people were deleted from her follow/friend list. Including Nick Jonas. Now his friends/fans/whatever are FURIOUS at her because she's such a hater, and such an old nobody. Who is she to delete NICK JONAS?? She's feeding the trolls (on purpose, of course) by re-tweeting their negative comments about her. Like "Who is this Rebecca Caine woman? Was in les mis 100 years ago or something". And I think she highly enjoys it all.

https://twitter.com/#!/RebeccaCaine

(she's also officially saying she has nothing against him, she just unfollowed him on Twitter. Just for the record)

I started following Rebecca Caine a few weeks ago. She is hysterical. Her tweets are some that I really look forward to reading on a daily basis. My favorite tweet of hers was right after the POTO 25th when she was wondering who that Jonas Brother was up onstage singing with JOJ, Anthony Warlow and Colm Wilkinson

Perfect Valjean for 2012? WTH does that mean? Are we supposed to retroactively de-age our characters when the calendar flips or something?

I'm a bit surprised, actually. Ramin so frequently goes on about how he wants to do unusual stuff and expand his range and "improve [his] craft" that for him to stick to the Cameron Mackintosh megamusical circuit seems rather odd.

SenorSwanky wrote:Perfect Valjean for 2012? WTH does that mean? Are we supposed to retroactively de-age our characters when the calendar flips or something?

This comment just slayed me, I kid you not.

Confirmed : click here

What an oddly short run. He'll do 6 shows a week and have 2 alternates (one show a week each.)

starryeyed wrote:Confirmed : click here

What an oddly short run. He'll do 6 shows a week and have 2 alternates (one show a week each.)

Why would that be? Is he perhaps the first Valjean in West End history to have an alternate?

Incidentally, anyone know if Alfie Boe is worth seeing in Miz? I don't really have any inclination to see the show at the moment, as I saw it too many times for my liking last year, but maybe...

Ramin declared after Love Never Dies he would never again do 8 show weeks or year long contracts so I'd guess that's why he is getting an alternate. Both Simon Bowman and Alfie Boe have had alternates though no one has ever had two though I don't believe!

I've not seen him myself but I've heard he is worth going along to see from others, however he is off a fair bit at the moment so he can apparently be hard to actually end up seeing due to that.

starryeyed wrote:Ramin declared after Love Never Dies he would never again do 8 show weeks

But the audience doesn't boo 8 times a week in Les Misérables...

Interesting, didn't know about Bowman and Boe having alternates. Did any Valjeans before them have alternates? Or is this a recent thing?

I think it's a recent thing. During Simon Bowman's first contract he took one Monday a month off but then his second contract he took every Monday off and had an "official" alternate. Alfie Boe's alternate does Mondays and Wednesday matinees. I know that David Shannon and Drew Sarich didn't have alternates but I'm not sure if anyone did before them but I don't think so.

Scorp wrote:Incidentally, anyone know if Alfie Boe is worth seeing in Miz? I don't really have any inclination to see the show at the moment, as I saw it too many times for my liking last year, but maybe...

I've seen him. I thought he was good, but not the best Valjean I've seen. I suppose he's worth seeing for his Bring Him Home, but that wasn't much different to the 25th concert last year. I'm going in a couple of weeks when he's scheduled to be off, as I've always been very impressed by his alternate, Jonathan Williams.

Ramin as Valjean? I sort of expected it to happen, especially since Hadley Fraser is playing Javert. Fraser is a very young Javert, so anyone much older than Ramin would have looked a bit strange. The prospect of the Karimloo/Fraser Valjean/Javert pairing doesn't exactly excite me.

Well, staying away from the show for 3 months isn't going to kill you. Maybe you'll get a palatable, more traditional Valjean next spring.

SenorSwanky wrote:Well, staying away from the show for 3 months isn't going to kill you. Maybe you'll get a palatable, more traditional Valjean next spring.

Hopefully. As long as they don't bring Drew Sarich back, I'll be happy.

Helen wrote:

SenorSwanky wrote:Well, staying away from the show for 3 months isn't going to kill you. Maybe you'll get a palatable, more traditional Valjean next spring.

Hopefully. As long as they don't bring Drew Sarich back, I'll be happy.

I know someone who loved Drew and I could never understand why!

Someone once described Hadley Fraser as sounding like a sheep as Javert so I don't really see it being a terribly exciting 3 months at the Queens. I'm intrigued to see that the general "yay awesome" attitude to the Ramin news elsewhere has died down and a lot of people are actually unimpressed/ bored by the casting.

I've said it before and I've said it again he just won't be able to act it, I am almost certain of it. I wish David Shannon would go back at some point (he genuinely seemed to love the role and still got excited talking about it years afterward) but he's staying away from theatre for quite a while now... shame really.

operafantomet wrote:Following Rebecca Caine's Twitter is quite hilarious right now.

She did some major clean up in her Twitter months ago, and similar on her FB weeks ago. Lots of people were deleted from her follow/friend list. Including Nick Jonas. Now his friends/fans/whatever are FURIOUS at her because she's such a hater, and such an old nobody. Who is she to delete NICK JONAS?? She's feeding the trolls (on purpose, of course) by re-tweeting their negative comments about her. Like "Who is this Rebecca Caine woman? Was in les mis 100 years ago or something". And I think she highly enjoys it all.

https://twitter.com/#!/RebeccaCaine

(she's also officially saying she has nothing against him, she just unfollowed him on Twitter. Just for the record)


ETA: ROTFLSHMSFOAIDMT!!

She's feisty. I like her

TAFKaR

starryeyed wrote:

Helen wrote:

SenorSwanky wrote:Well, staying away from the show for 3 months isn't going to kill you. Maybe you'll get a palatable, more traditional Valjean next spring.

Hopefully. As long as they don't bring Drew Sarich back, I'll be happy.

I know someone who loved Drew and I could never understand why!

As far as I remember, Drew Sarich really divided opinion. People either loved him or loathed him. I have a feeling Ramin will do the same.

I just saw this through my twitter feed:

Eddie Redmayne Joins Les Miserables Movie Cast as Marius:

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Eddie-Redmayne-Joins-LES-MISERABLES-Film-as-Marius-Film-Aims-for-Dec-7-2012-Release-20111101

Interesting--I like that they're getting some lesser-known performers in there, with so much star power already on board.

The Broadway World message board has a couple clips of him singing--rather promising!

~LCD

LadyCDaae wrote:Interesting--I like that they're getting some lesser-known performers in there, with so much star power already on board.

The Broadway World message board has a couple clips of him singing--rather promising!

~LCD

Got a link to that? Haven't heard of him, so I'd love to hear him.

Here you go--there are two links near the top of the page, one an audio recording of Mendelssohn's "Ave Maria" and the other a film clip with a very quick snippet of "Lord of All Hopefulness" (one of my favorite hymns!).

~LCD

Thanks. He sounds great.

I read on Rebecca Caine's twitter that she bumped into some 'original cast member' of Les Miserables going to try out for a role in the film.

I wonder who it was. She said the person was 'prestigious'.

My bets are on Wilkinson.

I for one would love to see Wilkinson as the bishop.

~LCD

That would be kinda weird, but might be cool.

It'd be fun to see Alun Armstrong in the film!

SenorSwanky wrote:

LadyCDaae wrote:Interesting--I like that they're getting some lesser-known performers in there, with so much star power already on board.

The Broadway World message board has a couple clips of him singing--rather promising!

~LCD

Got a link to that? Haven't heard of him, so I'd love to hear him.

Redmayne is quite well known on the straight play circuit and he's done a lot of films before. I think he'll be great. This cast makes me strangely jealous/bitter in a way -- jealous that the film of Phantom had about 0.00000000000000000000001% of the talent of this film.