Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Les Mis (School Edition) at “The Famous Spiegeltent”
Captivate Theatre
Genre: Musical Theatre
Venue: The Famous Spiegeltent, St Andrew Square EH2 2AD
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
When young people, with talent and a love for performing get together with a skilled creative team and pull off an entertaining and affecting story, I recommend people go and watch it.
Review
My mother was told, many times, that her bladder was near her eyeballs. It’s a genetic affliction.
In the last 20 years I’ve been involved in 4 school or stage school productions of Les Mis and I’ve seen many professional productions. So why see it again, because the pitch was reassuring, but particularly because it’s in a The Famous Spiegeltent
How can you fit this show into this space and have it work? Ingenuity, artistry and determination; it works.
Captivate Theatre is a well established and successful company and they have 9 different shows in this year’s fringe. They have been doing Les Mis for a while now, but I haven’t seen it before.
It’s 2 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon and it’s a sell out. The cast is large, maybe 30 and there is a 10 piece band, so there’s lots of relatives and friends in the tent, but that’s a bit unfair, it‘s a receptive audience certainly, but the cast and crew have worked hard.
The stage is 5 by 3m approx, the barricade is 20 small crates rearranged for every scene. It’s certainly not the conjoined monolith of the original staging but it is well sold by the cast and works fine.
The pace is rapid. The stage choreography, getting people and props in and out, at the right time, using the whole tent, is complex and delivered with precision and the noise of running feet and some microphone fiddling, but it helps immerse you in the scene.
The pace is relentless, in my opinion too fast, indeed rushed, as a consequence sometimes the performer isn’t delivering the phrasing and can lose the sense.
Not all the voices are equally confident but they are all talented, very well rehearsed, energetic and committed to the story.
Picking out performances from a youth ensemble often seems mean but I did start by telling you of my genetic affliction. I cried approximately 5 times.
Marius has a beautiful voice and delivers his songs with passion. Éponine achieves something different, her character seems simpler than in other interpretations, more naive, even less intelligent, but her story telling is superb. She triggers 3 of the 5 and my heart ached.
There’s a debate to be had about bringing the same show and the impact of new sets of family and friends buying tickets each time, but when young people, with talent and a love for performing get together with a skilled creative team and pull off an entertaining and affecting story, I recommend people go and watch it.
