The music of the people who will not be slaves again. It's the famous refrain from a musical that defined the late twentieth century, just as the novel and its spirit of revolution had defined an age before.
Blame is a Rap.
The masterpiece and the musical theater phenomenon is back on our cultural radar with an arena spectacular coming to Australia and starring some of the superstar talent who took Australia by storm four decades ago. Today, The Australian's Arts and Culture editor Tim Douglas, who happens to be a lame Is super fan, on why this musical endures. Tim Douglas is the editor of the Australian Review section and Tim, You've got a secret past as a Lamezerab super fan.
I'm not sure there's a past so much as I just said, continuing interminable present, but yeah, no, I love it. When I was eight years old, I looked in the bottom of my sad a sack and there were tickets to see Lamies in nineteen eighty nine at the Theater Royal, and I went along with my mum and dad and it was just a really kind of life changing moment for me.
I loved every middle of it, and we.
Had the soundtrack blasting around the house through much of the late eighties and early nineties, and I yes, still love it to this day.
It's based on a novel, of course, by the Frenchman Victor Ugo, who also wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And I went back this morning and read a summary of the plot of the novel, which I haven't read but I know you have. It's an incredibly complex, sort of sweeping story. I had thought it was about the French Revolution. That was my memory from childhood of having watched the musical, but it's really not, is it. No.
It's based loosely on the June Rebellion of eighteen thirty two. Victor Hugo was there in the Tuileery's gardens, apparently chin stroking, thinking of a play to right when he heard gunshots fight around the corner, and he kind of raced around and saw these students waving flags, kind of dying this bloody, glorious death against the government then King Louis Philippe.
Which they saw to be oppressive.
He of course wrote this novel while he was living in exile on Guernsey in the English Channel. He was exiled there for twenty five years after publicly calling Napoleon a trader and sending a letter to Queen Victoria, which was seen to be treasonous itself. So he started his life as a loyalist and a royalist. His father was a loyal member of Napoleon's army, and as he got
older in life he became a Republican. And that really is the kind of rich vein that runs through the middle of Lemisrabbler, which was standing up to the government. But yeah, not the French Revolution, but a smaller one, kind of posting the Boleonic Wars in the mid nineteenth century.
And it's a morality tale, really, isn't it about one man's redemption.
Yeah, it's a redemptive tale centered on Jean Valjean, who sentenced the night end years hard labor for stealing a life of bread defeat his family. He's supposed to report to the police Sergeant Javert for parole. He skips parole, decides to go on this story of redemption where he becomes a good man and ends up becoming a mayor of a town, adopts a child, all part of this kind of Christian theme that runs through the tail itself.
Seems to save a lot of people's lives along the way.
He saves lots of lives, There's lots of characters.
They kind of end up colliding in dramatic circumstances at the barricades and when the students take on the government and all these stories come together and Valjean's story comes full circle.
It's very complex, isn't it.
I Mean, there are sort of virtuous poor people who are terribly oppressed I'm thinking of from But then there are people like Valjean who are much more complex. They're not cardboard cutouts of good peasants who are rebelling against the evil authority?
Are they? No, they're not.
And and in fact, Valjean's kind of based really on who Go's own idea of himself.
His mother was Catholic.
He kind of saw himself for most of his life as Catholic and believing that idea of original sin and the need to repent, And so that story is kind of really his in its own way. I mean, it's an interesting tidbit too. Of course, family is very important to hug His dad was in the army during that time I mentioned earlier with Napoleon's army, but he was
born on twenty sixth of February eighteen oh two. He obviously did the maths or had a frank conversation with his father and realized that he was probably conceived on twenty fourth of June eighteen oh one. Now those numbers don't mean much until you think two four six one.
Now for six so one, your time is up and your paroles begone.
You know what?
That, of course is the president and number of Jean Valjean in his Tale of Course, one of the most climactic moments in the musical, and those numbers are sang out in Jean Valjean reveals himself to be who he is to Javert.
This is Russell Crowe as Javert, the villain, and Hugh Jackman as Valjean, the hero in the twenty twelve movie adaptation of Lame Miserab Yes, two far six oh one.
Him is Jean Valjean, name Chavert.
It's interesting that as an eight year old this was hugely appealing to you. I mean, this is a really adult story, isn't it It is?
I was thinking about this earlier, and it was a really kind of it is a revolutionary time. We're talking about nineteen eighty nine. This is, you know, eight months before the Berlin War came down, two years after Reagan delivered that speech to Gorbletrov about tearing down the walls. The iron curtains still up at this point. But there's a lot of kind of revolutionary fervor. You know, it's an interesting time for Australia. We floated the dollar earlier
that decade. Of course, we were more international looking than we ever had. The monorails popping up everywhere. You know, when monorails are popping up, that you know the world's changing for the better. So that year the Sydney Festival approached Cameron McIntosh, who had launched it in nineteen eighty five in London.
It went gangbusters.
The Sydney Festival said we're put on this free concert in the Domain. One hundred and thirty five thousand people turned up, and I was one of them. Marina Pryor was in the cast, Anthony Wallow Normal Row, of course, how do I forget Normally Row playing Jean Valjean, and Debora Byrne was playing Fontine. These are the great rock stars of the seventies and eighties in Australia.
And of course Australia fell in love with Anthony Wallower and Marina Pryor in The Phantom of the Opera, didn't they.
That's right, So that was the kind of their launching pad onto what we know now as the household names of musical theater.
It was a real moment. It was a great moment for Australia.
I remember that day at the Domain because it was the same day that Australia was playing the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground as the first day of that Test, which we went on to win, one of the only Tests we won against the Windies.
In their eighties.
But again it was a great moment for Australia because we're really kind of we'd been thrashed for a decade and Alan Border led us to a seven wicket victory that week.
This is amazing markers of a young Tim Douglas and learning more about you every moment. It's not dissimilar to the way Hamilton, which is about you know, the American Revolution, not something you would think is going to appeal to children. Is very appealing to children of that age from kind of eight years old up, isn't it. There's something about musical theater, about these kind of big ideas of revolution that is very appealing to kids.
It is, And I think the eighties is a real time for that. I mean there's a character, of course, in lem Is called Gavroche. In the Bookie is actually the son of the vile hoteliers, the thenardiers. In the musical, he is he's just a kind of he might as well be an orphaned child. He hangs around the revolutionaries and ultimately dies in really dramatic circumstances. But there's a song that he sings that it's in the original recording.
It was in the original musical, which was changed in eighty seven.
Look A've we got s because it's just a book.
There's a line in it where he says, you know, never never kick a dog because he's just a pup.
You better run for cover when the pup grows up.
And I remember as a child kind of hearing those words and feeling really kind of energized and inspired by it. And I think it's, you know, it's something he might have stayed with me.
What was it exactly about lame is?
And what is it about that show that continues to see it thrive in multiple literations, The twenty twelve films Though and Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe and Hathaway, I.
Dreamed, Dream and Time Gone.
Hope and Life.
Worth Living a Man Sea Fred of Course two, and the twenty eighteen TV series starring Dominic West.
It just seems to live on in popular culture. I Dream would be fuck give It's.
Interesting too because you know music was written by Claude Michelle Schomberg, and when it was premiered in London on the West End, it was actually kind of panned.
Critics didn't love it.
The music was seen as derivative and samey and a little bit schmaltzy, so it didn't kind of open to rave reviews. Macintosh stuck with it and then the people kind of, you know, maybe apply so rose up and said, no, we love this.
Coming up.
Who's the real hero of this story and why we are the eighties back in such a big way.
So it's been thirty five years since The Arena Spectacular appeared in the Domain at the open air free concert that was part of the Sydney Festival.
It's been brought back to Sydney to the ICC.
Not open air anymore and not free either, I might add, But really interestingly, it's just this incredible cart So we've got Marina Pryor coming back. She's now playing Madame Thenardier, the violin keeper we spoke about earlier. She of course was Cosette in the original eighty seven production in Sydney. She's the only person now to have played both those roles. Wow, both ends of that musical spectrum. Michael Ball is coming back.
He was the original Marius in the original London production, so he's now playing sharing the role of Javert with another singer. And Matt Lucas of Little Britain Fame is Thenardier in his production.
He's played that on the West End too.
Thenardier is a bit of a shady grifter who rips off the heroes of Lamey's rab. Matt Lucas took to Instagram to point out his take is a little different.
So Lamey's Arab is about a character called Thenardier, and it's about his story, and then there's this sort of other characters. Jean Valjean Jabert Mariusie vind Gazette and they knows various people that sort of flit in and out of the piece, But it's very much a Thenardier focused show.
That's what people can can expect. You know.
It's some really big names that are coming back to do it. But I think having Marina and Michael baul is really sweeten in a way.
Let's me find you that.
So it's not part of the Sydney Festival this time around, but how does it fit into the landscape of what else we're seeing on stage in Australia at the moment.
Yeah, So it's so interesting because Kat's premiered in eighty five in Australia. Macintosh is big and then Angreel Lloyd Webber the big kind of push for musical theater. We hadn't seen anything of that kind of stature before then Lamy's comes. Of course, Lamy's is still the longest running West endhow it's still running now in London. It's shot on Broadway in two thousand and three. It's had three
theatrical runs in Australia. There's a second arena show. But it really kind of just laid the foundation for what we're seeing now we've got new impresarios like Michael Castle popping up, who is you know, in addition to people like John Frost, etc. Who are still putting on great works, Michael's kind of taking at next level. And you know we've got Beetle Juice coming up around the corner, back to the futures on its way.
You know, pretty commers to run the train.
Went sport for choice like that thirty years ago. And so so the ongoing success of Lamis has really laid the groundwork for you know, families such as ours who enjoy the arts, but also for performers and musicians and you know, the creative arts more generally.
It's got a real eighties theme to it, though, I mean, you know, I don't know if it's just that you and I had our heyday in the eighties, but that decade resonates so strongly still in what's popular in music today. Michael Jackson is huge again for good oil Cats is back. As you say, we can't get away from the eighties, can we?
We can't.
It's a good point. I hadn't really thought about that, but yes, you're right. Every book I pick up or every time I walk in the front door. My kids are playing Motley Krue or some song I didn't even know from the eighties because I wasn't particularly exposed to that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's a great point, and yeah, maybe we're tapping back into that nostalgia.
I certainly.
Tim Douglas is The Australian's editor of Review, which is available in print wherever you pick up the paper and all the time at the Australian dot com dot au Slash Review.
Thanks for joining us this week on the front.
Our team is Tiffany Dimack, who edited this episode, Jasper Leak, who produced it, Kristen Amiot, our regular producer, Lee at Sammagloo, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombs and me Claire Harvey.