-Les Miserables London at the Barbican was nearly 4 hours long. It kept shrinking as they cut material during previews. There was a chase scene between Javert and Valjean that was cut early on.
-There was much tension between directors Trevor Nunn & John Caird and Mackintosh over the running time. Mackintosh kept demanding cuts in order to make it no more than two and a half hours. When the show reached a total running time of 3 hours, excluding intermission, Nunn refused to cut it back any more. He believed a lot of the material that Mackintosh wanted cut was essential for character development. For example, they had tried the inn scene without the intro and jumped right into "Master of the House." It was ultimately decided that the scene felt rushed and the characters random without the intro so they insisted on keeping it in.
Tensions grew and some shouting matches between producer and directors ensued. A cut Mackintosh proposed because he felt it was useless to the story was "Stars." Nunn reasoned that without "Stars" Javert is a one dimensional figure and that, in those 3 minutes, there is a substantial amount of essential information about the inspector that fleshes him out. Mackintosh later said he was unhappy with the placement of the song before "Look Down." Both actually had valid points and the song was moved to after "Look Down," which worked better. I still think it was foolish of Mackintosh to think the song should be trashed because it felt misplaced. Such drastic action was clearly not needed and I'm glad Trevor stood his ground or Javert would be a hollow character and literally a shadow of the one who "Swears by the stars!!!" :)
-"Ten Little Bullets," the original version of what we know as "Little People" on the London cast recording was cut very early on, much to John Caird's reluctance. He loved its biting lyrics and what it brought to Gavroche. Lyrics from the cut song were incorporated into his death scene sung to the same tune in the 2006 Broadway revival. I hardly get to say this because rants on the revivals horrible orchestration overshadow anything positive I have to say about that production, but the revival was remarkable in that it restored lots of little bits cut during the show's original run at the Imperial and the casts were among the strongest.
-The show's running time was officially 3 hours. Every production I've seen (I've seen all three original U.S. tours, the current anniversary tour, Broadway--both original and revival, and London) up until 2001 ran 3 hours with a 15 min. intermission. The first round of cuts were introduced into the Broadway production and later the U.S. 3rd national tour and London during that year. Something tells me the first round of cuts could have taken place earlier but there is more than one instance where cuts were introduced and I always get them mixed up. Please correct where necessary.
Recreation of original John Cameron orchestration to "On My Own" by yours truly. Click player below to hear.
Updated On: 2/4/12 at 07:03 PM
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