Matt Lucas and Marina Prior: the Les Miserable arena show is here
British musical theatre stars Michael Ball and Alfie Boe, in town to perform in Les Misérables The Arena Spectacular, have just caught wind of Australia's penchant for election day democracy sausages.
'I want a sausage sizzle in our elections in the UK,' Boe says. 'Seriously. Being here is so nice because you seem so removed from the rest of the hassle and stress that's going on in the world.'
'Australians don't take things too seriously.'
We do, however, take musicals seriously. Les Misérables The Arena Spectacular, produced by theatre impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh, is now playing at the 9000-seat ICC Sydney Theatre and will travel to Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne and the Brisbane Entertainment Centre as part of a world tour. It has broken the record for the highest number of tickets ever sold at the ICC.
Not content with being the world's most famous musical or the longest-running West End musical (40 years), Les Miserables' story of love, revolution, and social injustice in 19th-century France seems indefatigable.
Boe thinks he know why. 'I heard this couple last night and she was saying to her husband, 'I think I can carry on with things, the stress that we've been going through, I think I can cope with it now',' he says. 'All after seeing a musical.'
But why present an arena version of the musical?
Mackintosh, whose prolific and influential career includes producing The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Oliver! and co-producing Hamilton in London, says it's going back to the essence of what the show is about. 'One of the things I insist - and that makes it special - is that everyone in the arena show has been in the stage production of the show,' he says. 'Even [the] big stars.'
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