Les Miserables

As a young man whenever I went to London I'd always see the same poster slathered across platforms: Les Miserables. It looked the most miserable thing imaginable. ‘Miserables by name miserable by nature,’ I thought hilariously to myself. I mean there appeared to be a boy on the front, wearing nothing but a look that said, ‘I’m miserable. Why don’t you come to this show and be miserable too?’ And what was it about? Something to do with the Battle of Waterloo. How did Waterloo even host a battle? The Thames didn't seem big enough to house speed boats, river cruises and naval fleets. Les Miserables did not seem like an evening’s entertainment; it seemed like a nineteen-year prison sentence. I wouldn't spend a crust on this twaddle.

This did not make me want to go.

 

At the turn of the decade my friends Fi and Ben got married. They had a reading from Les Miserables. AND SOMEONE READ IT WITH THEIR LIPS. No vocal chords were harmed in the process as no singing was involved. It was from a book by Victor Hugo. 'Intriguing,' I thought. A few years later, I met my girlfriend, a big musicals fan. She’d been to see Les Miserables many times. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I thought, ‘not if she likes it. I mean she likes me, so her taste can’t be called into question. I mean to question her love of Les Mis would be to question her love for me – it’s best then that I take it as read that I’ve misjudged the situation.’

Les Miserables is set in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo. The field of pandemonium is not London, Waterloo, but present-day Belgium, then a part of the United Kingdom of Netherlands. The warring factions are Napoleon’s France and an British led alliance. The boy in the poster is not a boy, it’s a girl, Cosette, whom will grow to be the story’s heroine. I know this now because I’ve been watching Andrew Davies adaptation on BBC.

Like the rest of Britain, I love a Davies adaptation. The Welsh screenwriter has been part of our culture for five decades. He’s adapted House of Cards, Pride and Prejudice, Little Dorrit and War and Peace for broadcast. Given he’s now eighty-two, his work-rate remains prodigious with a John Updike adaptation in the offing. The great thing about Davies is he makes classic books available to all. He takes something perceived as fusty and musty, giving it spit and polish, so viewers can appreciate these great stories without feeling intimidated by them. I know with ‘difficult’ books if I watch them first, then I have the confidence to read the real thing. I then feel I’m not ‘tackling’ the book, rather experiencing it. Like a child learning to ride, Davies is the stabiliser, ensuring we stay upright; once we've mastered the motion we can then move on to read independently.

 

Darwin should study him: he liked looking at adaptations.

 

Davies adaptation of Les Miserables is straight drama; there are no musical adornments here. He has taken the book and in his words ‘straightened out the chronology.’ Hugo’s work is more loose with time, dividing into volumes that centre on certain characters. Novels can meander in a way prime-time tv cannot; the adaptation therefore required a focus, a thrust, that propels the viewer on. Davies has made the decision to stage Les Miserables as a thriller. His decision is vindicated. In many ways it feels like the moody older brother to BBC’s 2018 hit Killing Eve. There a sapphic dance ensued between security agent and criminal, a game of cat and mouse, where both long to be captured, devoured.

In Les Miserables the principal dancers are Jean Valjean and Javert. In Killing Eve there was mutual respect between the two competitors; they admired the work of the other. In Les Miserables there’s nothing but hatred. Valjean is the prisoner, sentenced to nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread. In punitive times, a thief is a thief; it doesn’t matter what they took and why. The crime is the thing, the motivation of no consequence. Javert oversees the prisoners, scoffing at their squalor, harrumphing their humanity. It’s easy to dehumanise people in a system ill-designed for humans. Treated as beasts, the prisoners are worked like horses. Whipped and flogged, they must work harder, faster. Valjean resembles one too: with wild beard and broad shoulders, he is a man mountain, a vehicle whose strength offends the virility of Javert. When he is eventually freed, Javert is sure they will meet again. He does not believe in rehabilitation and reform; he believes people are marked from birth, destined for good or evil. If someone commits one crime they may as well be dispensed with. In Javert’s world second chances don’t exist.

West (left) and Oyelowo (right)

 

Played by Dominic West and David Oyelowo, Valjean and Javert, respectively, are imbued with real depth. Valjean may be monosyllabic, but West’s eyes are polemics, harbouring speeches and treatise on the nature of man. Javert isn’t a reductive villain either. From Oyelowo you get the sense that his dark interest in Valjean is as much about masculinity as it is law and order. Valjean is bigger, bolder and brawnier than his nemesis. When the two meet later, the physical jealousy is compounded by hierarchical envy. How can Valjean, a former criminal, climb to a higher station than him?

There are other storylines too. That girl in the poster is Cosette. Her mother was Fantine, a working-class girl, who fell for an upper-class man. Just when future security came tantalisingly close, he left her to fend for herself. Being a working single mum in the 21^st century is difficult, being one in the 19^th century impossible. She houses her child with the Monsieur and Madame Thenadier, performed brilliantly by Adeel Akhtar and Olivia Coleman. Both have a background in comedy: Akhtar Four Lions and Colman Peep Show. Every inch of these comic muscles are utilised to create characters that we laugh at, despite how despicable they are. Monsieur Thenadier alleges he was a war hero that carried an injured Colonel across the battleground. In fact he was a vulture, feeding on the dead to purloin watches and silver. He and his wife are a fabrication. Their life a theatrical performance, so when Fantine meets this ‘happy couple’ she entrusts them with her child. The ramifications are dark and disturbing.

Colman and the actor, Akhtar.

 

I completely misjudged Les Miserables. It isn’t a miserable ordeal at all. Peers in their lifetime, equals in art, Hugo’s work has something of the Dickens about it- and vice versa. Both question societal attitudes to crime. Both tackle the question of class. Both unpick the fallout from war. Les Miserables is political and personal, a triumph of storytelling, one that will have you rooting for the underdog. It is The Wire and Killing Eve: a study of privilege and poverty funneled through a thrilling chase. It is a must watch.

Les Miserables is available on iPlayer.