How to be a Legend

Okay so I got these tickets for Les Miserables. I thought it was going to be a show about some sad lesbians who can only get happy with having themselves some girl on girl action.

This is not the case.  I seen Les Miz (Les is pronounced “Le”, no I don’t know why you’d stick an ”s” on the end when there’s no need either, that’s the French for you.) at the Edinburgh Playhouse.  I can call it Les Miz now because I’ve seen it and am all cultured and stuff, don’t you try it, you’ll sound pretentious.

There’s a few different reviews of it, or the movie, play, the soundtrack, the wikipedia entry. It seems it’s reasonably well known however those are all written by people with unknown Legend qualifications whereby this one isn’t going to be. So jack all those other reviews in, sit down and listen up and I shall pour How to be a Legend culture into your eyes.

In a moment I shall explain the plot and the storyline, there will be spoilers but honestly if you’re going to go see this, see if for the spectacle of it. The story is not something that’s going to really pull you in, written as it was by a clearly drunk cheese-eater. First off I shall go over the good bits.

The good bits : Everything except the story. Seriously, it’s awesome, the singing is fantastic, the costumes, the acting, the makeup effects, the lighting , the dancing and the sets. All are just really really well done and you can smell the quality two fingers deep. Everyones well into it so much they’re frothing at the mouth and firing spit at each other as they talk. No wonder there’s a fine net over the orchestra, they’d be getting drowned.

Now onto the plot of the story. This is from memory and so you might think I’m rememberng wrong. I’m pretty sure I’m not. The version I seen had Gareth Gates in it too, apparently he’s some wee stuttering dude who won that Prick Idol show. 

It starts off opening scene on a boat. There’s all these chained dirty blighters having a bit of a row. They’re singing about it, they’re sad. There’s a lot of sad in this movie incidently: Note title. Anyway they finish their song and the captain guy who’s a policeman turns out get one of them pulledup and dragged forward onto his knees.  He goes  “..” Actually just a note, this is a musical so all the dialogue is sung. I will be paraphrasing whenever someone has to speak. Ok, back to the review. He goes “Oi Bawjaws, you’ve finished being a prisoner now, so get off my boat. Here’s your papers that says you’re a scabby dog of a man who’s been rowing a boat. Don’t forget me, now toddle off”. So the guy leaves the boat with his pack on a stick sorta thing.

Now this boys name is Jean Val Jean.  Rubbish name. JVJ from now on. Turns out he’s been rowing a boat for 15 years because he stole a loaf of bread as his peeps were hungry, then tried to run away and the police didn’t like that (as they are want not to).  He cuts about a bit and doesn’t get much of a job because his papers say he’s a dirty thieving rowboat operator.  He takes a mental and punches a guy too. He’s quite a burly bearded guy. JVJ, not the dude.  So then he’s wandering about hungry and a priest takes him in and gives him some food. JVJ waits until they’re asleep and nicks the silverwear, chortling away to himself but he’s caught about 4 feet from the door. He gets dragged the 4 feet back to the door and the police go “This boy’s nicked yer cutlery mate”. The priest goes “nah it’s a present, forgot to give him these candlesticks, here grab these as well”. Then once the police go away the priest is like “Listen, ya beardy loser, you need to smarten up your act, sell those , make something of yourself”. No mention of wanting to bum him or anything by the way.  So JVJ feels all emo about this and is like “Oh I’m such a d*ck*. I’m going to sort myself out.” He then rips up the papers that say he’s a prisoner and  bolts away into the night.

That scene ends and people clap.

Okay now we fastforward on a bit and there’s a woman who works in a sewing factory or something and her boss is trying to fire into her and she’s always telling him no, so the other ladies don’t like her and think she’s up herself. They find out she’s got a kid and sends money to this couple who keeps the kid for her on the sly and they give her a total shaming for it and the manager goes mental. The mayor of the town who owns the factory pops in, surprise inspection and that.  ohohoh who’s this, it’s that cheeky rascal JVJ, done alright for himself, shiny buttons and everything.  He’s giving it “right settle down, i’m heading off, manager guy deal with this and be nice”. Manager guy doesn’t and sacks the girl who I can’t remember her name. We’ll call her Blondie.  She’s well upset cos the note says her kids sick so she needs money. So she sells her necklace, her actual hair and becomes a prostitute. This happens in the space of like 10 minutes.

JVJ comes by as she’s getting arrested for attacking some guy who’s wanting a freebie.  He’s all “Aw naw, this is my fault, leave her alone police chaps, I’m the mayor. “ So she’s quite wounded and he sends her off to the hospital.

JUST THEN A RUNAWAY CART SMASHES ON and lands on some guy. so JVJ takes his coat off and lists the whole cart with the barrells and everything. Turns out one of the policemen, or rather the chief of them is the old boat policeman who is called Javert.  He goes ” That was impressive barrell lifting, I only knew one guy could lift barrells like that, a prisoner called Jean Val Jean!”. I kid you not, THAT was what tipped Cleuso here off. Not the fact it’s the same face and build or anything. JVJ goes “… Aye?”. Javert goes “Aye, but you cant be him, i’ve chased him ten years and found him the other day so we’re gonna hang him”. OOOO the drama!.

Fast forward a little bit.
JVJ goes to court. Says “I’m JVJ, not that saggy sack of crap there, check out the tattoo but you’ll need to check it out quick cos gbye!” and runs out court. He runs to hospital , visits Blondie, finds out about the kid and says he’ll look after it. She dies. Clueso shows up at the door saying “I’m well arresting you”. JVJ says “No you’re not, I’ve got to look after the kid”, kicks his ass and runs out. 

That scene ends and people clap.

I’m going to speed this up a bit now.

Open on a pub run by a fatty with huge beasts hanging out the place and a slimey weasel looking guy with  tache. Now known as Tache and Fatty. These are the girls parents, she’s like 8 or so I think. Her names Cosette .  They’re bad to her and good to their own daughter Eponine.  I had to look these names up.  JVJ shows up with a letter from the mum, gives them cash, then f*cks off with the girl. He’s got money but is on the run from the police obviously. Not the most sable of environments but probably a step up.

That scene ends and people clap.

Fast forward some years.  Tache and Fatty are living on the streets with Eponine, she’s got a well dressed young male friend called Marius. He bangs into some guy and his daughter, it’s JVJ! and Cosette.  Marius and Cosette look at each other and want to bang. They claim it’s love, but obviously there’s no way it can be since all they’ve done is look at each other. Blazing idiocy since it’s clearly a total lust thing with no conversation.

That scene ends and people clap…. except they don’t because it’s not a proper scene end bit. ONE person clapped for like 6 claps, everyone else was watching the play and then everyone was just looking at him so he obviously stopped with some raging shame going on hahaha. It was totally all Not another Teen Movie. I was laughing my ar*e off in the middle of the theatre. What a complete chimp. He then tried it AGAIN a scene later, 3 people joined in with him this time but still a bit of a small team. Everyone was a bit timid about getting the clap going after that. It was kind of a “well, will we now? … i will if you will” affair.

Eponine (EP from now on) wants Marius but he sees her as his dirty street friend so she’s no chance. JVJ and Cos were well rich looking.  Marius asks EP to find out who it is.  Something to note that despite being the biological daughter of two completely white parents, Eponine is rather obviously “black” or however you like to say it. No offence but that’s PC too far. It’s ridiculous since we’ve already established that she is def their biological daughter based on how they treat the stepkid! Now I’m not saying she’s not very talented, I’m just saying let’s not get to the stage of saying “I’m so liberal I can beat basic biology!, minds so open its changing the ethnicticity of my children”. Not happening is it.

Javert shows up and JVJ flees the scene….
Really JVJ ?… you REALLY went back to the same city the guy works in? I mean, you’re loaded, she’s got no ties, you can go anywhere and be alright and you decided to go back to the same city the guy who knows you is hunting you from?… Not smart JVJ.. not smart at all.    Downright foolish.

EP finds out where she lives,  JVJ starts packing, Marius shows up and finds Cos, she takes him upstairs to her bedroom after exchanging names. She, like her mum, is not slow to get down to the business it seems.  What. A . Slag.
Marius goes off when JVJ shows up since he doesn’t want his ass handed to him. He’s clearly thought to himself  “that guy looks like he can lift a wagon like no one else, I’m not messing”. 

He runs off, JVJ finds out they’re “in love” and is all “aww, but I’m shifting her”. Marius runs off to meet his young mates who are having a revolution in the street but just on their own because their leader is an absolute idiot who just assumed if they got some rifles and flung a bit of junk in the street, hid behind it and said “We’re free now” that the whole city would rally behind them instead of the police just battering them stupid with muskets and sticks.  JVJ shows up to help them out and keep Marius safe.  He does so but everyone else gets well stabbed up and killed. During this Javert gets caught but JVJ lets him go.  Javert says cheer but that he’s still going to rattle his head if he gets the chance. JVJ says “no probs mate”.   EP also dead.

Marius and Cos get together, that’s all happy and stuff, not much going on there.  Javert catches JVJ but lets him go. Then he’s all emo and sh*t on a bridge “oh I’ve betrayed my duty, I am a penis” and a robot sneaks up behind him to push him off. Least it looked that way to me on the left. I got quite excited and thought it was taking a War of the Worlds type shift but turns out it was to make it look like he was falling when he jumped off. This didn’t actualy work from my angle but would have from the front I think.

JVJ dies from being old and goes off with the ghost of blondie, even though once again they barely know each other but JVJ knows she puts out.

That’s pretty much it. 

Oh yeah at JVJ said to Javert twice during the thing that he’d come back and turn himself in. Totally didn’t do it. Ripped the pish right out of him there. What you thinking Javert, the boys made a clear career out of running away from the police?!

Loser, probably got lost on the way down off the bridge..