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Les Miserables - The 10th Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall (1998)

BBC Warner / Region 1 / 2 disc set / running 148 minutes

Featuring Colm Wilkinson, Michael Ball, Lea Salonga, Judy Kuhn, Michael Maguire

One of those wonderfully extravagant and gorgeous musicals that seem to just run and run, based on the novel by Victor Hugo and brought to the stage by the now legendary Cameron Mackintosh, Les Miserables was given, in 1998, a massive 10 year anniversary concert special which has just been released in a sumptuous and very nicely packaged two disc set by BBC Warner.

More a concert performance than a straight re-telling of the story, although there are some re-enactments of pivotal action moments, this never less than thrilling performance features a brilliant cast (made up of Broadway and West End original cast members) including the likes of Michael Ball, Colm WIlkinson, Alun Armstrong and Ruthie Henshall as well as the Australian Philip Quast.

There are some classic and much loved songs on display here (score composed by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg) not least I Dreamed a Dream, One Day More and Do You Hear The People Sing (one of the stand outs is a performance of this song by 17 actors who have played Valjean in different productions around the world with each singing a line in their native languages, very stunning!).

The sound, as you'd expect is wonderful, the singers are backed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and at times up to 200 choristers.

Absolutely manna from heaven for fans of stage musicals and great entertainment in its own right.

Main feature is the second disc doco Stage by Stage which has a 1988 hour long documentary about the mounting of the production.

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