18 YEARS YOUNG, LES MISERABLES IS ON THE MOVE

After 18 years and over 7500 performances the legendary West End musical “LES MISERABLES” will play its final performance at The Palace Theatre on 27 March 2004. It will then storm down Shaftesbury Avenue to the Queen’s Theatre and re-open on April 3rd.

The move has been necessitated by Really Useful Theatres need to make essential renovations to the Palace Theatre which, because of Les Mis’s extraordinary run, have long been deferred.

Seen by over 50 million people worldwide in 38 countries and in 21 languages, “LES MISERABLES” is one of the world’s most popular musicals. There have been 31 cast recordings of “LES MISERABLES”, including the multi-platinum London cast recording and the Grammy Award-winning Broadway cast and complete symphonic albums. The video of the 10th Anniversary Royal Albert Hall Gala Concert has sold well over one million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling musical videos ever in the UK.

The entire cast of “LES MISERABLES” will move with the production and the original design from the Palace Theatre will be rethought for the Queen’s Theatre. “LES MISERABLES” currently stars Jeff Leyton as ‘Jean Valjean’, Michael McCarthy as ‘Javert’, Stephen Tate as ‘Monsieur Thénardier’, Jon Lee as ‘Marius’, Katy Secombe as ‘Madame Thénardier’, Joanna Ampil as ‘Fantine’, Lydia Griffiths as ‘Cosette’, Oliver Thornton as ‘Enjolras’, and Sophia Ragavelas as ‘Eponine’.

The Cameron Mackintosh/Royal Shakespeare Company production of “LES MISERABLES” by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, is based on the novel by Victor Hugo, has lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, with original text by Alain Boublil and additional material by James Fenton. “LES MISERABLES” is adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird.

“LES MISERABLES” has recently opened triumphantly at Theater Des Westens, Berlin. It is also playing in Bonn, Chemnitz, Mexico City, Detmold, Prague, and continues to tour America. It will open later this year in Denmark and Japan, where it was performed for the first time over 16 years ago. By the end of 2004 there will be over 800 productions of the Les Miserables School’s Edition scheduled or being performed by over 100,000 school children in the U.S and U.K, making it the most successful school edition of a Musical ever.

“LES MISERABLES” became the first full-scale Western musical to play in China in the English language when it opened for a limited run at the Shanghai Grand Theatre in June 2002, where it sold out to a rapturous reception. Plans are well advanced for a Chinese language production of Les Misérables to be produced in a specially built theatre in 2005/2006.

Performance times for the London production of “LES MISERABLES” at the Queen’s Theatre are Mondays to Saturdays at 7.30pm, with Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Ticket prices range from £15.00 - £45.00 and are available from the Queen’s Theatre Box Office on 0870 890 1110.

“LES MISERABLES” is now booking through 2005.