#honestly she was too old to play cosette but

[yourmotherstrashmouth]

Send me in the ask box the following info:

AOT

Cosette

18

She/Her

Bisexual

INTJ + 8

Ravenclaw

Capricorn

I'm a straightforward person. Very blunt and sarcastic. Very dry and dark humour. People either hate me or love me. Boys (and idk why) usually feel very intimidated by me. I love books and music. All dark academia books are my oxygen, can't live without them. As for music, dark indie rock usually does it for me. I'm hard working and usually keep to myself. I appear very put together and am very quiet outside of my friend group, but very confident on stage, for compèring and other functions and while managing a team or people. Very VERY deeply insecure, but no one knows except 2 people on this planet. I have 2-3 friend groups with 3-4 people in them. My personality changes dramatically accordingly, but I feel most at home with my 2 bffs. I'm very reasonable usually, but can be impulsive if paired with the right person. I'm family oriented even though we have a ton of issues. I like to cook, play the piano, play sports like Tae Kwon Do and Swimming. I hate basketball, though. I like reading, sketching and embroidery. I'm very loyal and I don't like saying this, but I feel like always give way too much in a relationship. I am constantly going through an existential crisis as I can't ever stop thinking about my future. My love languages are acts of service and physical touch. Physical touch, though, takes a loooong long time. I'm very formal while speaking with people, but it's not a switch I can turn off. It's not that I do it on purpose. I'm good with kids and parents love me, although they shouldn't. I'm an astronomy nerd, current studying in the STEM branch of my school. I love singing. And sometimes writing as well. I'm sorry if my thoughts are coming off as very sporadic rn, it's 3 am and I can't sleep lol. Btw, I find horror movies hella funny, like they crack me up so much. It's so dumb. But I am a scaredy cat in the dark (not after watching it, just in general), even though I try my hardest not to be. I don't give reactions. Like you could drop out of the sky and I'd say 'Oh' and continue to walk around you. I like watching thrillers, sci-fi and bond movies. Brokeback Mountain, Skyfall, The Imitation Game, The Matrix (the old one), Inception, Given, Sherlock Holmes (BBC), Little Women, Ocean's Eleven series, Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse, Taare Zameen Par, 3 Idiots and Whiplash hold a special place in my heart though. I rarely cry, but any sort of troubled family dynamic situation makes me bawl my eyes out. Anything you didn't get, I'm sorry about that. If you read through this, you're my hero cuz honestly I wouldn't bear to read through this myself. Thank you for all your time and efforts. Hope you have a wonderful day ahead of you.

Your match is... Eren Yaeger!

Song: Whatever It Takes - Imagine Dragon

He also takes a long time to get used to physical touch as he's not really into PDA normally

Watches all the movies you want as long as you're happy, he really cares about your happiness because that means the world to him

Loves how you're formal when speaking, he thinks it's a special touch in you and also appreciates how you're good with kids and that makes him want to have one of his own with you, but only when you'll be ready

He didn't feel intimidated by you at all! Because you made his heart pop for a reason!

#sorry i'm late #i'll catch up with all other matchups sitting in ask box soon #attack on titan #attack on titan matchup #matchups #eren yaeger

[a-heart-full-of-dumb]

I have a lot of feelings about the casting for the new Dutch Les Mis production next year. Or well at least about my first impressions about those who are already casted. So imma make a post about it whether you like it or not.

The new Dutch production is just as in the West End the new production and apparently Mackintosh was very closely involved (hurray /s)

Let's start with Valjean: honestly my first impression of the actor was "Oh he'd make a great Dmitri in Anastasia." (Turned out he did play Dmitri in the Dutch run of Anastasia so I was right about that.) I don't know his voice well enough to say anything about whether he can sing Valjean's songs and I am not sure if he's classically trained. But he does have a pretty good voice from what I could find so far. My main issue is though, that he looks younger than Enjolras. This is more an issue with the Enjolras casting but I'll touch onto that later. I'd have to see him in costume before I can make any final judgements about him looking young being an issue, but it's a bit worrying. He's reading the brick though

Javert: honestly this is a casting I'm exited for. Freek Bartels was a pretty great Enjolras during the Dutch 2008 run and I feel like he would make a great Javert too. At first I wasn't too sure if he could get the unhinged vibes Javert has, but now I think about it more, I am pretty sure he can and will. He has been in a lot of shows including several classic shows and, like I mentioned, Les Mis before. So Freek, don't let me down

Enjolras: where do I even start.. not to say that Enjolras has to he played by the hottest actors out there, but Enjolras is supposed to have a certain charm around him. This actor has none of that. He's the most generic looking man I have ever seen (absolutely no offence), he looks honestly a bit too old and from the few clips of him I could find, it didn't look like he has the most stage presence, which I think is quite an important thing for Enjolras to have. You have to believe everyone wants to follow this man, you have to believe and understand why Grantaire looks up to this man so much. You have to believe him in his role and in his passion. Maybe Mark (the actor) will end up surprising me, but I don't have much hope. However, credit where credit is due, he does have a pretty good voice and looking at where he studied and his former roles he is probably classically trained or at least has been in several classical musicals before. So at least he can bring the opera sound to the performance that it's supposed to have.

Éponine: this is a casting that doesn't suprise me. A few days before I knew they were gonna bring Les Mis back I was literally thinking about how, if they were gonna bring les mis back, Vajèn van den Bosch would be cast as either Éponine or Cosette. This is mostly because she's Vajèn cause she's just kinda everywhere, but also because she is a very good actress and singer. She has been in several classical musicals and she absolutely has the voice for the role of Éponine.

Cosette: I am pretty sure the actress just graduated. And this seems to be her first big musical so all I can say is that I'm exited for her. I am sure she'll do great.

Fantine: ah yes, Channah. I've seen her in a show before as older Nala in the Lion King. This was a long time ago though and I don't remeber much of her performance. The only other role I could find was that she apparently played Tina in the German run of the Tina Turner musical and that she makes (Christian) pop music now. Honestly she can sing, but I am really worried she's just gonna sound like a popsinger instead of bringing the classical sound she's supposed to have in the role.

And last for now, Madame Thénardier: apparently Mackintosh was insanely enthusiastic about her casting but idk if that's even good anymore. Personally I don't know her and I could find that many clips of her so all I can say is that she looks very similar to most actresses cast in this role.

I am still confused about the fact that they already casted Madame Thénardier but not Marius?? Nor Thénardier himself?? There was this "les mis in a nutshell" thing the new cast did, and obviously Marius was mentioned several times. However, because there was no actor playing Marius yet, he couldn't give his side of the story so if you didn't know anything about the show you have absolutely no idea who this random Marius dude they're talking about is.

They also keep saying they've casted all the main characters, but then where's Marius?? Is Madame Thénardier a main character? And not her husband who has more to do? I am confused.

#Valjean and Javert are both played by gay actors #so Valvert? /hj #I do have tickets to see this next year so I'll give my thoughts again when ive seen it #these are just based on first impressions #les misérables #les mis #les miserables 2023 #casting impressions #dutch les mis #les miserables cast

[nvvermore]

sorry everyone im reverting back into a poto fanblog, if u cant tell i fell into a rabbit hole this morning looking for an image to add to the beamie fic and now i have brainrot

#i always have poto brainrot even if its not surfacing #such sexy costumes #i even forgive the movie a lil for the production budget i just wish they had casted u know. #ACTUAL musical theatre actors and not #g rard but ler #why didn’t any one who does a broadway movie take advice from rent??? #they threw the original fucking cast in there and it was spectacular #its only strike was cutting goodbye love and changing mimi and maureens costuming #poto looks good and sounds okay until u hear like #OBC or RAH #even the les mis movie figured it out!!! found two big names w mus threatre bgs #and how they did the singing was genius cause it put everyone on an even level and sounded natural #ofc i dont know what happened w eddie redmayne #or with amanda seyfried cause shes great in mamma mia and then???? #honestly she was too old to play cosette but #disclaimer i am not bashing musical movies i support them on the basis of accessibility #and bc of that i criticize them cause EVERYONE deserves quality theatre #and i know im a huge proponent of ‘all art is good art and all singing is good singing’ #but autotuning the fuck out of vocals for broadway shows is not good #again #les mis is an incredible example of emotion over whats technically right #wow this got long ok #ophie runs their mouth

[westerosiladies]

Myrcella Baratheon Fancast Resource

Myrcella has golden curls, emerald eyes, and full lips. She is described by her uncle, Tyrion Lannister, as having all of her mother Cersei's beauty, but none of her mother's nature. Myrcella is delicate, beautiful, and courteous. For her age, she displays courage, a strong will, and high intelligence. She is eight, or almost eight, at the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire. Myrcella resembles Rosamund Lannister. (x)

TIL: Eight-year-olds are smaller than you think they are.

CARA JENKINS - YOUNG ELIZABETH (BELLE)

Cara was 8/9 when filming Belle. She’s got a handful of scenes at the beginning of the film, all in regency-ish clothing.

ELLE FANNING - MARY (THE NUTCRACKER IN 3D)

This film had an unusually long post-production, so despite the 2010 release date, it was filmed a few months after Elle’s 9th birthday. I honestly cannot pin down any sort of era for the fashion, but she’s just got the most perfect Myrcella curls.

POPPY WIGGLESWORTH - CHARLOTTE (THE DUCHESS)

Poppy (seriously does this kid have the most fun name or what?) was also 9 when filming The duchess. Late 18th-century fashion, usually in scenes with several younger girls.

ANAMARIA VARTOLOMEI - VIOLETTA GIURGIU (MY LITTLE PRINCESS)

11 during filming, Anamaria is really too old for Myrcella, but she’s has such a perfect aesthetic for her that I’m including her anyway.

OTHERS

1. HANNAH ENDICOTT-DOUGLAS - BRIDGET O’MALLEY (SAMANTHA: AN AMERICAN GIRL ADVENTURE): 9 during filming, Edwardian fashion. She plays a working-class girl, so most usable Myrcella footage comes from the end, when she’s in a nightgown instead.

2. ELSA HOUBEN - KATHERINE WOODVILLE (THE WHITE QUEEN): I can’t find an exactly birthdate, but she was roughly 10 during filming. The White Queen and the other Philippa Gregory series’ are full of tiny blonde children in Tudor dress, but you do have to do a fair amount of mining since the children tend to appear briefly.

3. LIA GIOVANELLI - YOUNG COSETTE (BBC LES MISERABLES): Another one for whom I can’t get an exact birthday, but she’s 10ish as well. Again the costume design’s not super accurate to Westeros, but she’s an expressive child with a fair amount of featured scenes.

4. RAMONA MARQUEZ - PRINCESS MARGARET (THE KING’S SPEECH): 9 during filming, medium number of featured scenes, early 20th century fashion.

Particularly for this one, feel free to add any of your own! The full set of my fancast resources can be found here.

#game of thrones #asoiaf #asoiaf fancast #fancast resource #myrcella baratheon #myrcella fancast #baar-ur #cara jenkins #elle fanning #poppy wigglesworth #anamaria vartolomei #hannah endicott-douglas #elsa houben #lia giovanelli #ramona marquez

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift Explains Her ‘Cats’ Transformation: Hissing, Barefoot Crawling and Jellicle School

By: Ramin Setoodeh for Variety Date: December 20th 2019

Taylor Swift attended “cat school” to learn what Jellicles can and Jellicles do. To prepare for “Cats,” the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical, Swift and her co-stars enrolled in classes to master the movements of their four-legged characters. In the film, Swift plays Bombalurina, a rabble-rousing outsider who sprinkles catnip over the Jellicle ball.

Swift didn’t phone (or meow) in her performance in “Cats,” starring Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. She wanted to be ready for her big number, “Macavity,” and in case Lloyd Weber enlisted her to write a new song for the movie. When he did, their collaboration was fast and easy, in the form of “Beautiful Ghosts,” a confessional ballad performed by the stray cat Victoria (Francesca Hayward) that serves as a bookend to “Memory,” the production’s signature song (belted out by Hudson).

On the morning that “Cats” premiered in New York on Dec. 16, Swift still hadn’t watched the movie. She was eager to see how director Tom Hooper’s “digital fur technology,” a lengthy post-production process where the human actors were turned into cats, would look. Swift spoke to Variety about all things “Cats.”

How did you first hear that Tom Hooper was adapting “Cats” into a movie Well, actually, it started a long time before that. When he was making “Les Misérables,” he called me in for Cosette [later played by Amanda Seyfried]. And I said, “I’m not a soprano, but I loved Eponine’s song, so can I audition for Eponine?” I went through the whole process of flying to London. I did a screen test with Eddie Redmayne and pretended to die in his arms, which was fabulous, but I didn’t get the role and [Samantha Barks], who played it on the West End, got the role and was absolutely phenomenal. But I had a really great time with it. I just thought, if I ever got a chance to work with him, I know that would be a great experience. He came straight to us with the offer for the role this time. I didn’t do any screen tests.

And you said yes? I said yes right away. You have to dislocate the end result with your experience and you have to commit to doing it only based on what you think the experience will be and if the experience will teach you things that enrich your life. So that’s exactly what I thought this would be, which is getting to work with the best dancers and performers in the world, getting to perform live on set, getting to work with one of the best directors out there, the most amazing producers and team of Andrew Lloyd Webber and [choreographer] Andy Blankenbuehler. What more could I possibly ask for in an experience? And so that was what made me immediately commit.

How did you get into the mindset of your character? It was really fun being on set because they had sort of an animal behavior class called “cat school.”

They did? We would literally do hours on end of barefoot crawling on the floor, hissing at each other. We learned about cat instincts and the way they carry themselves and the way that they process information, the way they see the world, the way they move. What’s strange is from the very beginning of the whole process, everyone on the director/choreography side of it had decided that we weren’t going to be crawling all the time and we weren’t going to be walking all the time. We were going to be hybrids in both our appearance and our behavior and movement. Which was so funny because you’d walk on set one day and they’d be like, “Oh we have to redo the choreography! It’s a little too human today. We need to make it more cat today.” Or they’d be like, “It’s a little too cat and not enough dance, so we need to dial back the cat and make it more dance.” And it just was so funny because regardless of what the end result is, there’s just never been a movie made like this, which is why it was so fun to be a part of.

How did you work on your hiss? I’ve had that down since I was about six years old. Don’t you worry.

Did you attend a lot of “cat school”? I came in, I’d say, four times more than I was scheduled to be there because I wanted to be a part of it. I’m a singer. This is not really my forte. I wanted to be there as much as possible and just get the hang of it and have my choreography down and have my song memorized and work on the dialect. And what ended up happening was I ended up being around the cast almost as much as one of the principal cast members who danced in every scene. I was around people a lot, got to know everybody, which really was amazing. But what ended up happening with me kind of loitering as much as I did, was that I ended up writing a song with Andrew Lloyd Weber.

You weren’t asked from the beginning to write “Beautiful Ghosts” with him? No. From the very beginning, they thought that it didn’t make sense that Victoria, Francesca’s character, is essentially the narrator and the lead character of the film. But we never hear from her. She never says what she’s feeling or going through. She never sings in the original musical. And Andrew had said he was so rushed during the 1981 version and it was essentially a workshop that took off and went viral - the 1981 version of viral - which became very successful very quickly.

And he had said to me that was the one thing that he would have done differently. He would’ve given Victoria a chance to actually say what her experience had been rather than just simply dancing. So this was kind of an opportunity for him to go back and add that. I think that they were working on some kind of idea for the character to sing a song, but they didn’t know what they wanted the song to be. And one of the reasons why I was on set every day was I wanted to really get to know that character because if anyone should ever call me to help with the song, I wanted to know what I was doing. And by the time someone did say, “Oh, Andrew wants you to go over to his flat to rehearse,” I kind of had in my head like, “I hope he asks me to write on this because I know exactly what I would want her to say.”

And he did. As soon as we were rehearsing, he started playing a melody that I knew wasn’t in the version of “Cats” that I had seen. I knew immediately it was a new melody and I was like, “What is that you’re playing?” And he said: “Well it’s a new song. We are hoping for Victoria to sing, but we don’t know what we want her to say.” It was just that the dream of what I was hoping he would say, because then I could just jump in and help.

Did the song have a name at this point? It didn’t have a name and it didn’t have any lyrics. It was a beautiful instrumental piece.

Did you write it quickly? I came up with the verse and chorus right there in his office, and we decided that for the bridge, I would take it home and we would write at his country house, which was the best idea. I got to go there and play the bridge I had written and then have an amazing Sunday roast and meet his whole family who are the loveliest people ever.

The song was just nominated for a Golden Globe. It feels really great. It’s so awesome that they nominated us because this is a song that I feel like is pivotal to the story. I don’t think the movie is the same without the song. Sometimes you see a situation where a song is stuck in a movie and it enhances it a little. This is imperative to the narrative of “Cats.”

Would you be interested in acting in more movies? Sure. We’ll see how this goes. I mean, honestly, I love my job so much. I love writing songs and singing them. I love that so much that this was for me a really special, strange, weird, exciting experience to get to have. And if there was something that came up that was really interesting in a different way, that would be cool. But I really just want to do things that enrich my life and I want to have adventures and I want to do things that I’m curious about. It’s kind of just where I am.

#taylor swift #variety #interview #cats #lover era #beautiful ghosts #andrew lloyd webber #tom hooper #golden globes 2020

[pcntmercys]

Brickclub 3.8.2-3.8.12

3.8.2 - 11/05/2020

It’s February now, and Marius is still thinking about Cosette (who I believe he last saw in the summer? It’s been some time.)

Marius sees two girls running away, talking about how they just narrowly escaped the cops. The girls are of course Eponine and Azelma Thénardier, but we aren’t supposed to know that yet. Marius also sees a child’s coffin displayed with lit candles: this leads Marius to think about how sad the mothers of all these children must be. He concludes that the mother with the dead child is better off than the mother of the girls “leading an evil life”, which REALLY irritates me. It is clear from the description of Eponine and Azelma that they are poor— they wear ragged clothes, have disheveled hair, and bare feet. Marius, having been poor but with too much of a sense of morality and enough support fom his friends that he never needed to steal, is really showing his privilege.

It seems like every time Marius has a thought, Hugo throws away his thesis statment of Poverty Is Bad And Wouldn’t Happen If Society Was Better. Marius clearly is someone we are supposed to sympathise with, and not view as someone that contradicts Hugo’s ideals (like M. Gillenormand), but he was raised rich, and ultimately doesn’t agree with what Hugo is trying to express through the narrative. So what purpose does Marius serve in terms of the themes and ideas Hugo clearly wants us to get out of this novel?

3.8.3 - 12/05/2020

Marius finds the letters written by Someone who is clearly a conman.

3.8.4 - 13/05/2020

We meet Eponine! She is described as looking both young and old at once; frail, cold, dirty, and poorly dressed, though she is described as not having “come into the world to be homely.” She has the “voice of a drunken convict.” (I wonder if she blows out candles with her nose?) I find her a bit odd: she seems to not really know how to act. She goes through Marius’ things, laughs at random, and tends to rapidly change the subject of conversation. I’ve never really understood why she acts this way. It seems like she breaks of it after she writes on the paper, and tells Marius that she has been educated, depsite her current state, but as soon as Marius poorly responds to her remark about his looks, she returns to her strange behaviour. It may just be something in Hapgood’s translation that makes her sound so strange, but I’m not really sure. Honestly, if I had lived Eponine’s life, I might also act strangely.

I’m a big fan of Eponine: her character is one of my favourites in the book, and also the one that I think was done the least justice in the musical. Although, let’s face it... as much as I love the musical, this book is too long and complicated for a three hour condensed version to really do any character justice.

3.8.5 - 14/05/2020

After his encounter with Dirty Sad Poor Girl, Marius rethinks his privilege, basically. Despite being poor for a long time, he realises that he has not had it nearly as bad as others. He also feels guilty for not noticing that his neighbours were starving next door so he could Save Them, but I don’t really feel like unpacking all of that. In conclusion, Marius realises that he can spy on his neighbours through the hole in the wall! Which is really fun AND appropriate, good job Marius!

(Disclaimer: I love Marius. He is also really annoying.)

3.8.6 - 15/05/2020

“Marius was poor, and his chamber was poverty-stricken, but as his poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The den upon which his eye now rested was abject, dirty, fetid, pestiferous, mean, sordid.”

3.8.7 - 16/05/2020

Eponine is successful in getting Jean Valjean a philanthropist to come see her family: M. Thénardier orders that they make the house look like more of a hovel than it already is, although I truly don’t believe it’s necessary, and will definitely make their life more difficult in the long run. This chapter makes it even clearer than it was before that Thénardier is a greedy man, willing to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of his family in the hope of being able to squeeze more money out of the people he sends letters to. 

3.8.8 - 17/05/2020

The philanthropist arrives, with Marius’ Ursule! His true love! Good thing he was spying.

3.8.9 - 18/05/2020

Thénardier is clearly a bad conman: making comments about not remembering what letter he sent to “that old blockhead”, and making angry remarks about how he has brought new clothes and blankets, but no money. He also tells a lot of very obvious lies: that he knows famous actresses (why didn’t he ask them for support?), that he has had great success as an actor in Paris (surely he can’t know if Valjean is a fan of the theatre— this could be easily disproven). It seems clear by the end of the exchange that Valjean is aware that he is being extorted, and leaves with Cosette, but promises to come back in the evening with more money.

3.8.10 - 19/05/2020

Though Marius watched the entire exchange play out, he isn’t really aware of what has happened, as he has been fixated on Cosette the entire time. He attempts to follow behind her and her father, but can not afford the cab to take him, as he had given 5 francs to Eponine earlier in the day.

3.8.11 - 20/05/2020

Marius is upset at not being able to follow Cosette, and lashes out at Eponine when she asks him why he looks so sad. She asks him to let her repay him for being so kind earlier: he asks her to find out their address for him. 

Despite how she acts in this chapter, after being asked to get Cosette’s address, I don’t think Eponine is as in love with Marius as fandom and the musical adaptation make her out to be. In my reading, her infatuation with him and disappointment at the fact that he is interested in Cosette is much more that of a young girl who has had few people show her kindness, especially young men— it is implied that her and Azelma have been prostitutes, despite their young age, and no doubt they are treated badly by the men who solicit them, as Fantine was shown to be. I don’t believe she is in love with Marius, but she feels drawn to his compassion and kindness, and wishes that she could have a better life with somebody like Marius: not Marius specifically.

3.8.12 - 21/05/2020

Thénardier insists that he recognises M. Leblanc as Jean Valjean, who he apparently undercharged for the sale of a child eight years ago. He then leaves, to see people who will help him get more money out of JVJ. 

#txt #les miserables #brickclub

[goodbyecringe]

(Un)Natural Selection Chapter 15

Éponine

I stood with the rest of the Selected Girls behind the red rope that sectioned us off from the rest of the guests. Most of the girls were smiling with their mimosas in hand waiting in line to be interviewed. Cosette and Iris were being interviewed together in their complimentary shades of pink and blue. Musichetta was pushing Liberty to a place in the shade and Teresa could be heard arguing with Claudia to let her wear a pair of gody sunglasses. I figured that Enjolras would come out with The Queen when she was announced so I sipped on my drink until Cosette was finished with the press.

“Éponine I haven’t been able to tell you yet but Coral looks lovely on you!” Cosette beamed.

“Thank you! I can honestly say I was surprised when my maids showed me the dress since most of the time they design more neutral toned dresses,” I smiled, just in case anyone was taking any pictures.

“You look great in those colors, but it’s nice to see you in something bright for a change.”

“Do you think we’ll have to spend the whole time behind this rope?” I asked, as Cosette accepted a drink from Iris.

“I think I heard Claudia telling Teresa that once the Queen arrives Enjolras will take turns escorting us around to keep the guests engaged,” Iris piped.

“I wonder if we’ll meet anyone of extreme importance,” Cosette said, looking at the crowd.

“We’re guests of The King and Queen, and no one here could be more important than them.”

“The Guest of Honor rescued thirty people from a factory fire a few months ago. I hear the King will be awarding him a medal for his heroism,” I said, remembering that was the reason Enjolras had been late to our date.

“Yes well he’s also an amputee now. Take that as you may,” Iris murmured.

“Don’t be such an ableist,” I stated. “Liberty will run over your foot if she hears you.”

“Well she’ll have to catch me first,” Iris said.

Just then, trumpets began to blow to announce Queen Carolina’s arrival. We turned to watch as Enjolras escorted her down the stairs to a podium. To my right, Iris began to fan herself, but it wasn’t due to the heat. Girls around me began to giggle and whisper as they continued to stare at Enjolras, who was in his military uniform.

“He does look extremely handsome with that sword,” Cosette blushed.

By all definitions, Enjolras was attractive, but I would have thought that after being at the palace for two months the other girls would have gotten used to it. I didn’t realize until Laila had food poisoning a few days ago that I had become reliant on her scalp massages. Now I realized why they made girls Threes, because when I went home I would never be able to live with my parents. Musichetta told us at breakfast that Anne was already engaged to a Two in Angles, less than two weeks after being sent home. When each of us left the competition we would be sought after because of our positions.

Maybe a nice Three would want me and we could take Azelma and move far away from Allens. I thought about if I had any chance with any upper caste men until I heard applause. Queen Carolina had just finished her speech and was beginning her trip around the garden. Enjolras made his way over to our section and requested Liberty, probably because the first section of guests were on tile.

“Éponine, the press would like a word,” Claudia said, offering to take my drink.

“Thank you Claudia,” I said, giving the glass to her and making my way towards the camera and interviewer.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us Lady Éponine!” The cheery interviewer said as I sat on the stool.

“The pleasure is all mine,” I said, forcing a smile.

“So we hear that you recently went on another date with Prince Julien. What was it like?”

“Well this date was a bit different than our previous dates. As I’ve discussed on the Report, we normally watch the new episode of Law and Order. But this time we had a beautiful dinner in the garden,” I said.

“Do you mind disclosing what you talked about?”

“Of course not. We talked about books that we’ve recently read, how incredible the food is here at the palace, our favorite childhood memories, mostly the “getting to know you” topic.”

“Anything more?” She said, holding up the cover of “Illeá Weekly.”

The caption read ‘The Prince and The Pauper… In Love?’ in bold white lettering. Enjolras had leaned over the table to get a dead bug out of my hair after we had finished discussing Joly’s severe case of Hypochondria.

“Prince Enjolras was being kind enough to get a bug out of my hair,” I laughed, playing the cover down.

I didn’t want the other girls to see me as more of a threat to their game.

“I’m sure that was what was going on. How would you describe your relationship with our beloved Prince?”

I had to be strategic and smart here.

“Enjolras has become a great friend to me during my time here. We share a lot of common interests and passions but we also challenge each other. So I would say we’re doing okay,” I said, continuing to smile.

“I’m sure you and Enjolras are doing better than okay,” the interviewer said, smirking.

I immediately realized my mistake and knew that every attempt to downplay my relationship with Enjolras had failed. I made sure that I didn’t let my persona falter while the camera was rolling. I made a beeline for the refreshment station so I could down my pride with a mimosa.

“Make sure you don’t drink too much before Enjolras takes you out to the crowd,” I heard an amused voice say from behind me.

“Thanks Musichetta, I guess I just let that reporter get to me a little,” I said, setting my glass on the bar.

“Please, call me Chetta. It happens to the best of us. If it weren’t for my fair share of warnings I would have been in several scandals by now,” she laughed.

I realized that this was my first time talking to Musichetta by myself as she was very selective of who she allied herself with. She had received a moderate amount of praise from the gossip rags for her beauty and work with the underprivileged.

“Éponine, I consider myself a fairly transparent person and I wanted to let you know that I would like to get to know you. You should stick around the Women’s Room more often,” she winked.

We began to talk about how a few of the other girls appeared to be on the verge of one of the scandals Chetta had mentioned when I saw Enjolras out of the corner of my eye. He was returning to our section while Marissa, a feisty Four, followed a few feet behind him. She looked absolutely dejected as she stumbled into the arms of Claudia, who rushed her inside.

“Excuse my interruption ladies, but may I borrow you, Éponine,” Enjolras asked, his voice tense.

“Of course,” I said, excusing myself from Musichetta, who gave me a smirk.

“Is everything okay, Enjolras?” I asked innocently.

“It appears that Marissa has had a few too many drinks, which I didn’t believe was possible from mimosas,” he said, bringing his hand to the bridge of his nose.

“You’d be surprised at how low a beginner’s alcohol tolerance is,” I said mindlessly as I hooked arm arm through Enjolras’s.

“It was such an embarrassment. I had to excuse us because she was about to throw up on the Viscount de Gillenormand’s shoes. The man is already a raging royalist and I would hate to put his grandson in such an uncomfortable position,” Enjolras grumbled.

“So I’m your damage control?” I laughed.

“You are who I feel most confident in, as long as you don’t mention politics to him.”

“Then why bring me over at all?” I asked, knowing that our relationship was strictly reliant on politics at this point in the Selection.

“Let’s call it a lesson in self-restraint. And to be frank, I feel immensely calmer with you,” Enjolras smiled as we approached a seated old man and a lanky boy.

“Viscount de Gillenormand I’m pleased to introduce you to the Lady Éponine Jondrette of Allens,” Enjolras said, releasing my arm.

“A pleasure to meet you young lady,” the older man said in a thick french accent.

“Please sir, the pleasure is all mine,” I said smiling.

“Marius, where are your manners?” The older man said, scolding his grandson.

“My apologies. Marius Pontmercy at your service, Lady Éponine,” the lanky boy said, kissing my hand.

My skin felt like it was on fire when his lips met my skin.

“Illeá never fails to surprise me whenever I come to visit. Your rituals are most disturbing at times, Your Highness” grumbled the Viscount.

“The Selection has been a time-honored tradition since our country's inception. I’m quite exalted to be able to participate in my own Selection,” Enjolras stated.

If I had just met Enjolras I would have thought he was telling the truth.

“A Selection seems like such an odd custom for a Frenchman like my grandfather. What are your thoughts on it, Lady Éponine?” Marius asked, placing a hand on his grandfather’s back.

“Honestly, I’m honored to be a part of such a fantastic tradition. I’ve learned so much during my time here at the palace and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world,” I lied.

“You seem awfully well put together for a commoner. What’s your rank?”

“Grandfather, Illeá uses the term caste. It’s more to determine a citizen’s job in society, not their worth,” Marius corrected.

“Well with Prince Enjolras present I am unable to disclose that information.”

“I don’t know the castes of any of the Selected Women. I want citizens of Illeá to see that I am impartial to caste,” Enjolras explained.

“Well seems like a waste of effort to me. Marius, would you escort Lady Éponine to get some refreshments for Prince Julien and myself. I have an important matter I would like to discuss in private,” the old man said, sitting up straighter.

“My Lord, I am very confident in Lady Éponine’s-” Enjolras started

“Forgive me but I am not very confident,” Viscount Gillenormand bellowed.

Marius and I began to walk to a bar on the other side of the gardens to give his grandfather and Enjolras time to talk.

“I apologize for my grandfather. His old age has made him quite cynical,” Marius began.

“It’s okay, I’m a little tougher than I look,” I laughed.

“You mean you didn’t grow up in heels and fancy dresses?” Marius gasped.

I impulsively decided that this would be the right time to dust off my old tricks and snatched Marius’s pocket watch while he ordered the drinks.

“It’s easy to tell that you grew up in heels and fancy dresses,” I smirked, holding the watch up.

He immediately grabbed at his vest pocket, only to find that he was actually staring at his watch.

“Where did you learn that?” He asked.

“Let’s just say that castes in Illeá determine a little more than your job in society.”

“That’s terribly unfortunate. You should consider emigrating to France when you’re done here. I can proudly say the worst thing in France is our temper, but I’m sure you already know that,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that your necklace has the Gallic Rooster on it. It’s the French symbol to protest the monarchy in favor of the republic,” Marius explained.

“My friend gave this to me the day I came to the palace. I had no idea what it meant,” I said, reaching for the necklace Justine gave to me.

“Your friend must think you’re quite the fighter, Lady Éponine,” he smiled, handing me a drink.

No one had ever called me a fighter.

“Well, Monsieur Marius, if France and I have so much in common I might just have to consider your offer,” I said as we clinked out glasses together before walking back towards Enjolras.

“If you don’t find it completely inappropriate, I would love to send you some pictures of Paris. So you can prepare for your move, of course.”

“I would deem that as quite appropriate,” I blushed.

I couldn’t help but stare at Marius’s freckles while his grandfather continued to complain about such a large gathering of peasants. Even while the other guests gushed over Enjolras I was the perfect image of trust while I stole glances at Marius, who had escaped his grandfather and found Les Amis. I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol but as the garden party grew longer the butterflies in my stomach intensified.

#enjonine #enjolras #prince enjolras #eponine #cosette #marius #les amis #les miserables #the selection #crossover #cross-posted #fanfiction #musichetta #ao3 #modern universe

[trompe-la-mort]

Los miserables, 1971 – “Holy Hugo, they included ‘insert rare scene here’!”

Wrote this a while ago and realised I never posted it. So here goes.

Do you have a favourite obscure scene or detail in Les misérables that hardly ever makes the cut in screen adaptations? If you do, this might just be the adaptation for you. If you want to see an adaptation that tells the story well, however, this is not for you.

It's a nineteen-part (coincidence? I think not...) TV adaptation by the Spanish channel RTVE within its show “Novela”, a show of multiple literature adaptations that ran for fifteen years in total!

And the best part: You can see it all online on RTVE's webpage: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/los-miserables/

You can skip all episodes with mod 5 = 1 (except the first one), those are the episodes originally shown on Mondays, recapping what happened last week.

Like the Italian TV adaptation, this is unfortunately hindered by its budget. Unlike the Italian TV adaptation, this has the additional problem of its screenwriter's frankly bizarre understanding of concepts such as “pacing” and “importance”.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's rather cool to have an adaptation that includes many of the more obscure scenes, but I know the book and I know the context for all of these. I think asking how much sense the plot actually makes to someone who only knows this adaptation is a legitimate question.

Time is “wasted” on montages, dream-sequences and scenes of characters tossing and turning in bed, all of them many times longer than they have any right to be. Partially, it feels like the screenwriter couldn't decide which plot details to include and then just tried to incorporate as many of them as possible – continuity be damned. As an example, he took the time to include Mabeuf's death at the barricade, but it doesn't mean anything, since it happens to a character we have never seen before. Because Mabeuf's entire background is missing. To top it off, the watching students call him “le conventionel”, probably just to tick another box on the check list. To get another time saver, “show, don't tell” is occasionally blatantly violated. We get Valjean's entire history from him telling his life story to the bishop. The backstory of Marius and Gillenormand is conveyed in their fight before Marius leaves, meaning all the info is solely for the benefit of the audience, because all characters involved already know this stuff. Yet, bizarrely, they occasionally have time for a “show” where none would have been necessary. We get a far too long montage of Fantine with Cosette in Paris, that includes Fantine getting fired from her old job. Honestly, you can cover the question of why Fantine leaves Paris with a single line – you know, like it's done in the original?

I wouldn't usually mind, but it not only messes up the pacing, but it also takes up time that could have been used to flesh out some of the details. Or even some of the main plot points. We have Marius letting Thénardier go at the end, but Marius doesn't owe him a debt in this one. It might have made the Gorbeau robbery easier, but at the end, Marius has no real reason to not call the police. That is, if Thénardier is even a prison escapee. It's never shown nor mentioned how he got out of prison after the Gorbeau house robbery. On a smaller scale, it leads to a few bizarre moments, where introductions or transitions are missing, as if someone was trying to cut the corners wherever possible. For example, one episode starts with Marius' and Gillenormand's fight, without any introduction to their conflict or any real introduction of the characters (apart from Marius being the cute boy from the park). Or take the Champmathieu trial. The prosecutor asks for the witnesses to be heard and the very next moment, the judge is already questioning Brevet. No scene of the witnesses entering the room or at least the camera pointing out that they've been there all the time (because I definitely missed that in the overhead shots of the fairly small courtroom set); no scene of the judge calling the first witness, which becomes even worse when he does it to every subsequent witness.

Between this kind of overly short editing and long, drawn-out scenes of Marius healing (which commits the additional cardinal sin of making us think that it's finally over with a short conversation, only to continue for another minute or so) or of Fantine tossing on her bed (which we only later realise is prossibly Cosette's birth!), it feels a bit like there were too many people involved and no two of them could disagree over the tone and style of this adaptation.

I have another, if slightly petty, complaint: Why do the opening credits contain pictures of scenes we never get to see? It makes it pretty hard to identify which actor played which character and it also made it look they would include scenes that end up not being there. From the credits, you could be forgiven for thinking that there are scenes in Toulon, that Valjean's sister shows up or that they include the scene where Éponine stops Patron-Minette from robbing the house in the Rue Plumet. None of these actually happen.

Just to finish my list of complaints about this adaptation, let me talk about Javert. Now, I like the basic idea of what they did with the character, if only because it is the opposite to what most other adaptations do. In many adaptations, Javert is portrayed as a far more villainous character than in the book. These guys went the opposite way. Javert is calm and polite most of the time (making his one outburst when he arrests Valjean even more meaningful) and in one scene seems concerned about Fantine's safety (while she's still employed at Madeleine's factory that is), when he meets her in a disreputable part of town after dark and insists on accompanying her to her destination. Yes, it's later made clear that he still uses this to find out what she was doing there in the first place and this is what kicks off the chain of events leading to Mme Victurnien finding out about Cosette, but the two scenes taken together imply that Javert is both caring about the safety of an innocent civilian and spying on said civilian, just in case they're not as innocent as they seem to be. If they had done it like this throughout the movie I wouldn't be complaining.

Yet, it also means they had Javert come up to Madeleine, stating that he is happy to be the first to congratulate him about his appointment as mayor. It makes Javert's later resentment of Madeleine seem quite petty. Or the end of the “Confrontation”, where Javert, rather than leading Valjean out  of the room, just makes a hand gesture to ask him to step out. Which again could have worked, but then he would have had to stay polite for all of the scene. Which he didn’t. They also decided not to stick to it for the entirety of the series. The portrayal of Javert in the later parts is more “traditional”, so to speak.

The acting is solid, for the most part, but hardly ever outstanding, although I’m likely not the best judge. Valjean's acting is fairly, occasionally too, subtle and he's a bit too calm for my taste in his entire encounter with the bishop. The actor, Pepe Calvo, is better known for his work in spaghetti western movies and I've by now realised that the reason he seemed familiar to me from the beginning is because of the western “Dead Men Ride” which I saw as a child, in which he plays a Myriel-like character of all things. I've described my thoughts on Javert, but I think that is due to decisions by the director and the scriptwriter, not the actor. Fantine has an annoying tendency to overact, especially in the later parts of her appearance. Cosette, fortunately not played by the same actress, is a bit boring. Little Cosette, however, does outstanding work for a child actress. Both Thénardiers are decent; they went the “Mme Thénardier needs to look sufficiently trustworthy for Fantine to leave her child with her”-route and she doesn't quite manage to be as scary as she should be. Everybody else is rather unremarkable.

Oh, and while we're at it: If you cast as Cosette an actress who actually looks like a teenager and as Marius an actor who might be in his early thirties, you need to specify that Marius is only a few years older than Cosette. Please!

But now to what I like about this adaptation: It's occasionally insane attention to details.

I've complained about the over-abundance of dream-sequences, but some of them really work. Showing one of Cosette's daydreams explains her life, character and dreams much better than any number of “real” scenes could have. Even more awesome is the inclusion of Valjean's dream before the Champmathieu trial. I mean, “Tempête sous un crâne” is usually going to be a weird scene anyway, you might just replace it with a weird dream while you're at it. Also, holy shit, they included Valjean's dream! That's a definite first.

Here's a list of further uncommon scenes this movie has: -Valjean steals Petit-Gervais's coin, although he does it before meeting the bishop -The bishop gets some exposition. It's only done in two conversations with his sister and Mme Magloire, but it's there -The scene of Tholomyès and Co. dumping the girls -A meeting of the Amis verbatim from the book -Gillenormand believes Marius to be dead and faints when Marius opens his eyes.

And here's a list of crazily uncommon scenes this movie has: -Fantine's meeting with the Thénardiers includes the girls using a cart chain as a swing -Details about work in the jet factory -Fantine thinks she hears Cosette outside the hospital -Cosette lying about watering the guest's horse -The coffin-escape! In full, glorious length and details. -Javert has a letter from the prefect in his pocket -Marius' note to identify his corpse -Escaping from the barricade in National Guard uniforms (although Valjean doesn't put in the one he is currently wearing) -Valjean writes the letter explaining to Cosette the origins of his fortune

Also, the ending is really well done. I really recommend you watch it for yourself, I don't think describing it can do it justice.

Generally, avoid this for a first look at Les Mis, but for a fan this is an interesting adaptation to watch and I suggest you give at least some parts a look, if only for the novelty.

#Les Misérables #los miserables #los miserables 1971 #movie adaptation #les misérables adaptations

[maraschinocheri]

A novel no one needed on the Les Mis filmed concert: 1,800+ words of stuff and nonsense.

The first thing that jumps into my head is that I am so glad the concert run is over, and the second is that it’s a very strange feeling when the strongest vocal performances on stage seemed to belong to Enjolras, Eponine, and … Cosette. But let’s get the rest of it all over with first.

• Alfie Boe’s acting has improved since he last played Valjean, thankfully, but good lord, he really needs to not get involved in any even moderately extended run of anything, because he clearly cannot hack it physically or vocally. And while it may seem churlish to say so, I am so bored of his Valjean. Warble warble warble, seeming so out of place with everyone else’s voices, and just. Enough. He looked lovely, of course, and I’m sure his fans truly enjoyed this repeat of him in the role, when … he was actually there, but he sounded absolutely exhausted. I’m afraid I spent a lot of his performance wishing I were watching JOJ on film instead.

• Michael Ball’s mention during the encore that this was his last performance as Javert seems a fair thing; he is not—and never was— meant for this role on any level (I maintain he has all the threatening menace of Snidely Whiplash), though Stars was not bad, especially because he left himself, you know, sing and not bark or growl or spend so much damn time and energy trying to not be *~MICHAEL BALL~*. The gritted teeth “m’sieur! mayor!” was just a boring choice, the Confrontation was a muddy mess, the Intervention played too much for comic effect (though MASSIVE POINTS for bringing back the original why the hell did he run? instead of why on earth did he run?), the barricade scenes had too little punch, the Sewers had so much potential that disappeared, but … 

But. While Ball’s is not my preferred style of Javert and never could be, I have to take a deep breath and blinkingly applaud his wild leaping commitment to batshittery in the Suicide. I mean, if you’re going for full on batshit at that point, you have to really sell it, and with any luck make it a different range of batshit than previous batshit Javerts, and he did. My dad, the sole member of my family not much prone to show commentary, said “That was excellent.” firmly after the Suicide, and a part of me grudgingly agreed. But please, never again, Michael. Honestly I think he’s relieved it’s done.

(Also honestly, the most amusing moment of the entire concert experience for me was my mother’s interval exclamation that she had “a new boyfriend!” Assuming she meant Bwadders, I laughed and asked oh really, who? And she said … Javert. After I recovered myself, I reminded her that Javert was Michael. Ball., who has been at one stage or another my—and everyone else’s—mother’s boyfriend since 1985. She had entirely forgotten he was playing Javert in the concert and was bizarrely fooled by wig and costume, but assured me that even now, she “could swim in his dimples.” My mother, everyone.)

• Shan Ako was a marvelous Eponine, and I loved her On My Own. She’ll be great fun to watch in the actual production, I think, and I so appreciated a tough cookie Eponine with old school vocal power but newer school technique and touch and oh my god subtlety without losing anything in characterization, even given the limitations of a concert performance. Houchen’s Marius wouldn’t have deserved her, anyway.

• Speaking of Houchen. You know, I was fond of Rob while he was in his actual run as Marius, but he’s absolutely checked out of it mentally and emotionally, and it shows. He still has a lovely voice that really works as Marius sometimes, but there’s nothing … there underneath the pretty sheen, and after the few years’ distance since his proper run, I’ve seen enough Marii who enjoyed the role and found substance in it that the lack of depth in Rob’s take was disappointing. However, I acknowledge that some of Marius’ actual-show chances of showing range don’t happen in the concert version, and perhaps if they’d been included my opinion would change. He knows he’s aged out the role now, however, and I highly doubt he’d ever want to do it again even if invited to do so. But who knows.

• I walked into the concert film with no opinion of Lily Kerhoas’ Cosette other than knowing she could sing it beautifully, but I was actually impressed—and sort of want to sit nearly every principal Cosette of the last, oh, decade in front of her performance and say, see you’re allowed to act; it can actually work—and I look forward to her work in the proper show as well, especially if they get her some costumes that actually fit and don’t look made of tissue.

• God, I hate Matt Lucas. The end.

• Katy Secombe has added some different touches to her Madame T, some good, and some—obviously Lucas-influenced—bad. It’s unfortunate that some of the Thenardier ~comedy absolutely cannot work in a concert setting—the wedding was awful—but she made a decent hash of a bad deal.

• Which brings me to Bwadders. Oh, Bradley. He’s just so very, very good at Enjolras, and always has been. This concert!jolras, however, had one very different vibe from his run’s take on the role, which was … a hopefulness, maybe? A joy and breathless hope running beneath the passion passion PASSION that’s always been there, and it was beautiful to watch in his eyes and mannerisms. The concert contained Bradley somewhat, in that his strong physicality wasn’t allowed to sort of fill the room (and barricade) as it had at the Queens, and I missed that. Also—and there is no getting around this, sadly, for me—that manbun still ain’t it. (Gingerfather—whose fave character in the show is Enjolras—just sighed heavily and said that there should’ve just been one of the Ponytails of Yore instead, and you know, he’s not wrong.) Bradley also nailed two of the three Big Notes, but his until the earth is free was done differently from how he approached it during his real run, and not for the better (the Ghost of THAXTON giveth, and it taketh away). And yet … it didn’t matter. It truly didn’t. He was the best of the principals, and at least for me would probably have been even if he’d bollocked the other two Big Notes as well. Anyway, Bwadders. A thrill to watch, and alive with energy so much of the show otherwise lacked.

• You will note no mention yet of Fletcher. I refer to the point above re: Matt Lucas.

• The Amis, as one. I am aware that many, many people adore Raymond Walsh’s Grantaire, and I entirely understand why. He was fine. Craig Mather’s Combeferre and Niall Sheehy’s Courfeyrac both allowed both actors to show off some real oomph in their voices, though I’m still much too rattled by a Courfeyrac wearing Joly’s clothes. I love Vinny Coyle because he’s just so obviously, thrillingly in love with the show, but he’s also a fabulous Feuilly, and I merrily handwave the not-so-great we’ll be therrrre because a) it’s a horrendous note few people can carry well, and b) I’ve seen and heard him do it brilliantly so many other times when he was covering Feuilly as a swing. And it was delicious to see Will Jennings as a background onstage SwingAmi. Everyone else was just sort of … there, though all very pretty. It was extremely clear who had been in casts properly educated and invested in the show, but that’s a record I’ve played enough.

• I will never not love seeing Sarah Lark, Jo Loxton, and Tamsin Dowsett. I also deeply appreciate seeing Oli Brenin doing everything, everywhere, all the time.

• It is never not wonderful seeing Earl Carpenter bishoping, but my god EARL WHAT EVEN with that Bamatabois. What even. There was active squeaky recoiling happening in my row.

• Gavroche was excellent and adorable and GINGER. Full marks.

• And so to the encores. The only point I could see to the coat handover from Michael to Bradley was to give Michael a Moment along the lines of the Valjeanfest, as it’s not like the role of Javert is new to Bradley. However, I was fascinated by the strangeness of the harmonized Stars, and I think I need to watch and listen to it again about a thousand times to really confirm my proper opinion. I know Bradley doesn’t sing Stars that high for real—and certainly doesn’t need to—and what they did here doesn’t really … show his approach to the role, but it was interesting, and I give them credit for the try. (I did attempt to imagine others—let’s be real, I was imagining THAXTON—even being asked to make a go of this, and my imagined Thaxtonic response will make for excellent nightmare fuel.)

• Then, then, then. All Valjeans all the time, including some Potato in a tour costume that still has me hissing at its wrongness. Anyway! Leaving aside Alfie—whose section just really sounded like jesus christ I cannot believe I have to do this again; I just want to lie down for a thousand years and block Cameron’s number from any further contact with me put to music—I found the whole thing much more palatable than the 25th anniversary Valjeanfest, perhaps mostly because of my fave part of the whole concert—the whole two lines JOJ and Killian shared—but also because the four Valjeans not actively praying for their own deaths all seemed to have physical, emotional, and vocal respect for the role, the show, the audience, and each other. It was a strange joy to watch.

Which, truly, this concert was as well, in enough places to ensure that I will buy the inevitable DVD. On some occasions I may even start its playback before Look Down (Paris). Maybe.

(One more small thought, though, on this concert and why I am glad it’s over: I know the run sparked a lot of joy for a lot of people, but if I saw one more bitchy tweet from the cast members I might have screamed. Are some audience members dickheads? Absolutely. Then enforce the fucking rules. Train and allow your FOH to go after those people (and force the management to back the FOH staff up!), remove them, throw one of the old pest catcher boxes from under the Queens seats at them, whatever. But shut up. I don’t even follow any of the whingers I saw! Twitter just enjoyed throwing their tweets into my feed like a toddler’s wall-splattering food. #blessed)

Anyway. That’s that done. The show’s world turns, though obviously it no longer revolves.

#ginger is headed this way with an opinion #natter natter natter

[tyrian-tattler]

The Tyrian Tattler - 66 Scion - 10 Copper

Plain text below the cut.

Here’s the Tea

Just Passing By? 

A good source tells us that recently spotted crashing a lake-side party of Salma College students, was none other than the Minister of Beetletun himself.  Allegedly out for a stroll, the Minister is quoted to have been 'just checking it out' for some reason.

A Stinging Rejection? 

Witnesses in the Maiden's Whisper watched as the poor secretary of Salma made an attempt to ask out a gentleman whilst having a glass of wine and being famously rejected. The poor girl left in tears!

Up in Flames? 

At the very same party reported having been crashed by Minister Volkov, things got a little wild and one student was spotted running, screaming into the lake whilst on fire. Sounds like a security issue, if you ask me.

Looking for Love? 

The Lady Vice Legate has retired. Why you ask? Love. In a stunning open session this week, the young Minister declared in a show boaty fashion that she was leaving her station to pursue the new goal of becoming a wife. Yawn!

Hot for Teacher?

Two unnamed individuals, one suspected to be a teacher at Queen Salma College were spotted canoodling in a broom closet by another student. Wonder who it might be.

Dear Tattler...

Dear Tattler,

My husband lost his job. He had worked there since we were married five years ago. I gave up my own career to raise our family and now I am frustrated and hurt, as his own actions caused his dismissal. How do I show him support when I'm so frustrated?

Signed,

Stay At Home Mom

Dear  Mom,

Honestly, first things first, get a good divorce lawyer and leave his butt behind. Then, go get yourself a make over, a boob job and use the alimony to buy yourself a nice place. You don't need to put up with his crap anymore than you already have. He sounds like a real loser and you, girl, are a goddess who should be pampered.

XOXO,

The Tattler

Dear Tattler,

I'm moving to a brand new place. Everything’s new. Not just the location but the people, the types of people, how they talk, how they interact, what they do for fun. They’re a different breed of animal, seems like.

How do I fit in and make friends?

Signed,

K

Dear  K,

They say imitation is the best form of flattery.  Or something. Treat it like an experiment, buy the clothes, talk the talk, act like you belong and darling, you will. If there's one thing about people I know, is that they're dumb and they want to be fooled. Give them what they want. Invent a new you.

XOXO,

The Tattler

Dear Tattler,

How can someone become as renowned as these people you write about? I’d like to make my entrance into the upper echelon of society’s most talked about.

Signed,

Wallflower

Dear Wallflower,

If you're not already rich and famous, the best way I know of to join the ranks of the Krytan elite, is to marry in. Find yourself a nice old bachelor and don't forget to put out.

XOXO,

The Tattler

How Far is Too Far?

Mesmer Magic has always been a hot topic of conversation for the sceptical minds of Divinity's Reach to debate. From the newest debutantes, all the way up to the Queen, herself, Mesmers certainly keep things interesting. But, how far is too far?

Sources nearest to us at the Tattler betray that he hottest new trend in Mesmer magic this season has been to illusion one's body to look better. Nothing new, one might argue but, we disagree!  In recent most years, the young debutantes of Divinity's reach have become mothers and with it the plague of muffin top has settled upon the beautiful elite.

Recently released from an unfair imprisonment due to a completely misguided and false stalking charge, the Tattler's esteemed photographer has taken to the streets again to expose he would-be illusionistas.

Desperate to keep their so-thought girlish figures, Divinity's Reach socialites; among them are Luxelen Larkspur of the Ruirkton Roses and the former Vice Legate, Stella Aguillard as well as many many more, reported to be the worst offenders of illusioning their muffin tops. 

No shame in getting old, but there is shame in lying to the people. This publication suggests bringing a mirror wherever you go, or risk being duped!

Fauste Watch 1332

The continuous twists and turns, unfolding drama concerning the life of Doctor Cesare Fauste has sold more magazines in this season than most, so to celebrate that fact we have pinned the doctor down (not literally, don't be weird) and scored an exclusive interivew, in his own words about who he is as a man and a lover.

Recent sightings of himself with anyone other than Cosette Hale are few and far between. 

However! This rag has begun to wonder if Cosette Hale is playing the Ascalonian silver fox after she was spotted recently sharing a bottle of wine with Jason Balmonte. Scandalous!

Name: Doctor Cesare Fauste 

Nickname: Fauste 

If I weren’t a doctor, I’d be: I suppose I would still be a soldier, likely one who has ascended rather well in rank.  However, one never knows.  I may have broken my leg doing something foolish.

If I could trade lives with another person, it would be: There is no other person I'd prefer to be.  I've never had a life cross mine such I envied, save for a house cat.

My worst habit is: My obsession with precision and my view of perfection.  I do not rest until I am certain that something is unable to improve more than it already has.

I’m most insecure about my:  Ancestry.  Those before me have humbled my course due to their frivolity.  

I feel sexiest in:  Naked, I suppose.  Usually the reason for being naked is the cause.

I get secretly annoyed when: Someone tries to show me they are more alpha than I.

The weirdest rumor I’ve heard about myself is: Literally any rumor.

The best gift I’ve ever been given: My children, without a doubt.

I know a woman is perfect for me when:  I do not believe someone is perfect for me.  I do not want someone to cater their traits to me.

I think it’s sexy when a woman: Is patient and kind with more than just myself. Earnestness is my greatest weakness.

I wish I was more:  Open towards those who wish for my vulnerability.

#The Tyrian Tattler #IC Gossip #66 Scion

[thesunsethour]

Little Les Mis Things ~ 28 Dec 2018

* okay so this is becoming a series

* let’s get started my guys

* DUBLIN EDITON

* KILLIAN DONNELLY BACK AS MY MAIN MAN JEAN VALJEAN!! he was perfect absolutely incredibly prefect. i saw him a year ago in london and then booked again for this summer but he was gone so when i found out he was gonna be in dublin i like ran to get tickets (i explained this all to him at 482994 miles an hour at stage door he was lovely). Killian is the best Valjean i’ve ever seen he hits all the high notes his acting is superb he just embodies everything jean valjean and i will treasure his stint as JVJ for as long as i live

* Katie Hall as Fantine was amazing!!! you really got the sense that fantine wasn’t this ‘can-do-no-wrong angelic woman’ but literally a young girl forced into terrible circumstances which Katie played SO WELL holy fuck. her acting with javert and JVJ was just stellar

* Javert was Nic Greenfields and he. was. INCREDIBLE!!! stars honestly had me in tears what the fuck man it was beautiful and he was like slowly getting more haggard as the musical went on and khlgkfk I LOVED HIM

* Cosette was Bronwen Hanson and she was the smiliest Cosette i’ve ever seen it was so pure you could really see her as just the embodiment of light and hope and her scenes with Marius was A+++

* Speaking of Marius, Mr Henry Apps made his professional debut during this tour and WOW!! astounding. he was awkward but not annoying and love struck but not sickening

* Enjolras!! Will Richardson!!! he had the good ass blond curls for this role GOOD ASS BLOND CURLS!! he was so good and his singing was beautifulllllllllllLll

* Éponine my love was Tegan Bannister and this was a solid af éponine tegan really made this role her own while still being éponine if you get me it was gr88888

* Thénardier was Martin Ball and need i say any more than he stole the goddamn show

* Mme Thénardier was Sophie-Louise Dann and hoooooooly shit was she committed to her accent it was brilliant and she was hilarious

* OK GENERAL THINGS

* there was no revolve like there is in london and so the whole staging was different and it was freaking fantastic

* they included all these little book moments like when valjean steals some money from a kid twas good

* killian donnelly is a fantastic actor and when JVJ is getting rejected by everyone at the start i was nearly on my feet like “STOP BEING MEAN TO HIM!!!”

* jean valjean got beat up so much in this production. someone help him. let him sleep. stop punching my boy

* the foreman really was fuming today and you could really sense the fear he pity in everyone

* fantine also got beat up by the other factory girls leave my girl alone please!!!

* her hair was so beautiful and when they cut it it was so sad

* fantines transformation from ‘virtuous’ to ‘lovely lady’ was never more pronounced then in this and you could see the early stages of her sickness and anger and hooooo boy it was emotional

* you could also see some of the other ladies getting sick and it kinda made out that they also died soon after and that’s so sad oh god

* when that prick who accuses fantine started babbling to Javert fantine had like kill bill sirens going on

* fantine practically attacked JVJ and was like “kinda all your fault bruh” and jvj has his sad puppy dog brooding face of oh no my morality it was dramatic

* javert: jean valjean was captured this morning” JVJ AS MLM: *freeze frame* huh whaaaaa

* who am I? 2!4!6!0! ONEEEEEEEEEE (high note thanks k!!)

* fantines death was so tragic i died too

* whenever a character dies a really bright white light shines on them store that info it’ll become important later

* when jvj met cosette he booped her nose remember that too it’ll become important later on

* master of the house was fucking fantastic best sequence in the whole first act

* thénardier not knowing how to bless himself when his wife says “it’s no more than us christians should do”

* GAVROCHE!!! my little man!!!!! LEGAND our little narrator

* montparnasse didnt have his hat babet did and i was sad

* however, montparnasse was fabulous and his acting choices (by leo miles) were superb and really book accurate he was always real sneaky and sly with perfect posture

* when cosette and marius met cosette dissolved into giggles and it really served to humanise that meet moment

* G R A N T A I R E ( ruben van keer) was the best grantaire i’ve ever seen. he was constantly drunk and drinking and hanging off people and you could see he reallyyyyyy annoyed enjolras BUT R and gavroche had the sweetest relationship (remember that, it’ll be important later)

* gavroche, standing on table: “lemarque is dead”

* enjolras, lifting him down: “lemarque is dead. hmmm. that’s sa- LETS USE HIS FUNERAL FOR OUR POLITICAL MOTIVES”

* all the amis were like “seems kinda soon? idk” but E was just so inspiring that they were like “hell yeah” after two seconds

* cosette was on her balcony and marius was below it ala romeo and juliet and when cosette rushed back into her house to come downstairs marius flung himself against the wall “IM DOING EVERYTHING ALL WRONG” lol drama queen

* attack on rue plumet- CHECK

* during on my own the entire audience seemed to have caught a coughing bug and were hacking up their lungs like SHH

* after on my own éponine walked upstage and the barricade like filled in behind her it was class

* éponine screamed in pain during a little fall of rain and honestly? i died it was so sad

* grantaire hugged gavroche so tightly after éponine died and kissed his head it was so gentle wooeowoowow i stan older/younger brother dynamics

* OKAY SO AFTER GRANTAIRES VERSE IN DRINK WITH ENJOLRAS RAN DOWN FROM THE BARRICADE AND THEN DIDNT HUG HIM AND I WAS LIKE HMMMMMM OK WHAT BUT THEN AS R STUMBLED AWAY EVERYONE IGNORED HIM AND HE COLLAPSED IN A CORNER BUT GAVROCHE RAN OVER AND HUGGED HIM AND FELL ASLEEP ON HIS LEGS CURLED UP IM N O T O K A Y

* bring him home murdered me

* it was so beautiful

* everyone listen to killian donnelly sing bring him home

* he got a solid 2 minute long applause it seemed like the applause would never stop

* since they didn’t have a revolve stage when gavroche went round to pick the ammunition you could hear him singing but couldn’t see him and when the first shot rang out all the barricade boys like jumped but then he started singing and climbing again and made it all the way to the top of the barricade before being shot, bathed in white light and collapsing into enjolras’ arms

* it was SO SAD

* enjolras passed him to grantaire who SOBBED

* and so instead of enjolras and grantaire hugging in drink with me they made had like a solemn moment of understanding over gavroches body and they both looked to traumatised and fuck

* fuck

* then as all the amis died on various parts of the barricade white light was shining in every direction and grantaire was the last to die

* when JVJ was dragging marius into the sewer he was just muttering little reassurances to marius like “come on now good boy there we go not long left come on please” and boy did that shit hurt

* enjolras was upside down in a wagon cause there was no revolve and javert piled gavroches body on top of him

* when thénardier woke JVJ up thénardier nearly karate chopped him it was hilarious

* turning fucked me up they all brought candles on stage and there was this little child there and oh fuck it was so sad

* BUT THEN

* during empty chairs marius walked into a stage filled with candles and picked up éponines one and all the amis filed on and picked up their candle and walked off as he sang and at the very end marius blew out éponines candle and raised the jar it was in like a final toast to his friends what tje fuck that’s sad

* during the wedding the thénardiers were so funny and all the wedding guests copied their ridiculous dance moves

* WHEN JVJ WAS DYING I WAS DYING HE LOOKED SO FRAIL AND OLD AND HE BOOPED COSETTES NOSE AS HE WAS DYING LHLKHKKHKHKG

* fuck off bye i’m broken that was so goddamn good

#heres the REAL adaptation #les mis #les misérables #les miz #les miserables #theatre stuff

[kainosite]

Les Misérables 2018, Episode 2

Welp, Anthony Perkins is not going to be knocked from his pedestal of “Most Brick-Accurate Interpretation of Javert Despite Being Far Too Attractive for the Role” any time soon.

The Good:

• Finally we get an adaptation that will force both us and Valjean to confront the question “Does Petit Gervais deserve the protection of the French criminal justice system, and if not why not?”  The miniseries kind of had to do this because it made Valjean’s theft of the coin so much more deliberate than in the book, but it has done it, and not before time.  Les Mis fandom has been willfully avoiding this question for years.

• The Thénardiers were superb.  I know Olivia Colman is contractually obliged to appear in every BBC production ever, but her ubiquity is entirely justified here because she may be the best Mme. Thénardier of all time.  Thénardier was good too, and that brief flash of violence against Mme. T when she challenged him was a valuable addition, both because it explains a lot about her character and because it foreshadows what he’ll become in Paris.  So far we’ve only seen him as a corpse looter, a dodgy innkeeper and an extortionist, but he’s more dangerous than that, and we caught a glimpse of that here.  There were some nice subtle touches: the Sergeant of Waterloo sign and the story of Thénardier’s heroism, the fact that the girls only have two good dresses between them (Azelma immediately gets Cosette’s; when they’re showing off Cosette to Victurnien she’s wearing Éponine’s), the inclusion of unloved, adorable baby Gavroche.

• One consequence of Colman’s excellent performance is that Fantine’s choice to leave Cosette at the inn appears quite reasonable, as it should.  Fantine did exactly what a young woman traveling alone is supposed to do: she gravitated towards the mother playing with her children because that’s the person who is supposed to be safe.  Mme. T was welcoming and sympathetic, though still with a bit of a Thénardiery edge, the little girls played together like sisters, and Fantine’s decision to leave Cosette in this stable, apparently happy environment seems entirely natural.  She had no way to know that wholesome surface was wallpaper over an abyss.  The people who can afford the diligence get a recommendation for the other inn, but she had to walk.  (The Vimes theory of Yelp reviews.)

• Having Fantine walk in on Madeleine’s mayoral inauguration was a clever way to handle that exposition in theory, although slightly clunky in practice.

• Madeleine is so awkward.  His speeches are so bad.  His hat and coat are so ugly. <333

• I love every OC in Montreuil.  I love the bourgeois who is super excited about Madeleine becoming the mayor (I hereby dub him “Robert”).  I love Fantine’s factory friends who gossip about their sexy boss and his bedroom grotto and then run to get him to rescue their fallen coworker from  evil cops.  I even love the public letter writer with his creepy but pragmatic advice.  I imagine he’s been witness to a lot of human misery and has developed that cynicism and dark humor you often see in people in frontline emergency services.

• I don’t love Mme. Victurnien, but that’s her, all right.

• This adaptation is doing an excellent job with Fantine’s illiteracy, and has been since the first episode.  The skin-crawling awfulness of having to conduct your most private, personal business through the public letter writer and have him know and comment on all of it really comes through.

• The police are all in plainclothes and basically look like a gang of thugs.  This adaptation has really grasped the 1820s French police aesthetic.  I also appreciated how hostile and judgey everyone at the Prefecture was towards Javert.

• I don’t know what it says about Davies that the characters he can most consistently write well are the asshole fuckboys, but Bamatabois was great.

Also I don’t think I’ve seen a Fantine beat up a Bamatabois this bad since 1934 when she put his head through a glass window.  As in the 1934 adaptaion, this creates a minor problem with the narrative because it means she really is guilty of a serious assault and Javert is right to arrest her, but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy seeing Bamatabois punched repeatedly in the face.  I do not have a heart of stone.

• I’m choosing to believe that Javert’s handshake following his resignation is a little nod to readers of the novel, who know as well as he does that a legitimate magistrate has not taken the hand of a spy.

• Nice fake jet manufacturing process in Valjean’s factory: they even included the gum-lac.  The flag at the Prefecture of Police is the white fleur-de-lys, not the tricolor.  They really are putting tremendous effort into getting some of the little details right.

• This adaptation’s sense of place continues to be excellent.  Montreuil-sur-Mer has its steep hill; during Madeleine’s inauguration you can even see the Canche.  The soldiers from the garrison are a ubiquitous background presence. The Prefecture of Police in Paris looks like the old headquarters at the Rue de Jérusalem, which if it wasn’t a happy accident shows a truly remarkable degree of historical research and commitment to accuracy.  (They then proceeded to cover it up with that hideous red font, truly the ‘YELLOW’ of this adaptation.)

The Meh

• If you must go with a “Javert immediately makes a positive identification of Valjean” plot their first meeting wasn’t a disaster, I guess.  There was some decent dramatic tension.  I appreciated Madeleine’s initial cunning plan to stare out the window for the entire rest of his life so that Javert couldn’t look him in the face, before realizing that this probably wasn’t going to work.  The little slip where he called Javert ambitious and betrayed his prior knowledge of him was good.

• Why does every person in this adaptation have a ridiculous and implausible horse?  Why does Javert have a horse to ride to Paris, which is far enough away that you’d need to change horses and you should probably just take the diligence, but not to Arras, which is within riding distance?

The horses are elevated from “bad” to “meh” by the fact that Valjean’s palomino is gorgeous, though very unlikely to exist in northern France in 1823, and if he must ride an implausible horse it might as well be an anachronistically pretty one.  Also by Valjean and Javert’s fraught moonlit horseback encounter, which is obviously what an adaptation should do with its ridiculous horses if it insists on having them.

• The Chief Inspector in Paris was neither Chabouillet nor attractive, nor did he have any fun hierarchical tension with Javert.  Boo.

• This adaptation is sure going hard on the Valjean/Fantine vibes, huh.  I don’t hate it, which probably counts as an enormous accomplishment for the miniseries.  I think it manages not to come off as gross mainly because Madeleine is so incredibly awkward that it’s impossible to imagine it ever progressing to the point of a sexual relationship.  Fantine smiles at Madeleine because she’s so relieved to have found a safe harbor.  After an internal struggle Madeleine manages to smile back because that’s what you’re supposed to do when people smile at you, right??? and she’s so powerless that she’s the only adult in Montreuil he doesn’t find threatening.  In a decade or two they might progress all the way to reciprocal “Good mornings” when she comes in to work.  That’s as far as this is going to go.

• Sadly this vision of social harmony and human connection will never be realized, because Fantine got fired.  Specifically she got fired by Valjean for added drama.  I know people are up in arms about this, but honestly I think it’s fine?  At the end of the day it is Valjean’s sexist policy that costs Fantine her job and his chosen supervisor who implements it.  The franc stops with him.  Having him fire her himself just makes his responsibility a little more apparent. I don’t think it’s necessary to depict it this way, but it’s fine.  Adaptations do this sometimes.  In 2012 something very similar happens, where Valjean is too distracted by Javert to deal with the Fantine Baby Drama and lets a malicious subordinate call the shots.  The Original French Concept Album has Valjean fire her directly without any excuse for his behavior at all, and nobody thinks the musical is a irredeemable character-ruining travesty of an adaptation– well, one guy.

• Shouty Valjean is not doing anything for me but he’s not catastrophic either.  It is unfortunate that most of the people he interacts with in this episode, and therefore most of the people he shouts at, are female, but we know from Episode 1 that he’s equally happy to shout at bishops who have just saved him from a lifetime sentence of forced labor.  Westjean is an equal opportunity shouter.

The decision to portray Valjean’s saintliness as a constant effort that slips whenever he’s stressed is an unusual one, and certainly not Brick-accurate (Brick Valjean’s saintliness is a constant effort that almost never slips), but I don’t think we should dismiss it out of hand.  Television needs to externalize internal conflicts in some way, and I can’t say this is a less artistically valid method than eg. I Miserabili’s tendency to have everyone monologue all the time.  We’ll have to see where they go with it.

• Valjean didn’t refuse Javert’s resignation.  The resignation scene is so weird that I’ve decided I’m actually okay with this, because it’s really very unclear what Javert’s is resigning over.  Is it the “false” denunciation?  Is it the argument over Fantine, which he also apologizes for?  Has all this turmoil just made him reconsider his life choices, and he’s decided to emigrate to America and become a paddleboat pilot on the Mississippi?  Who knows!  Valjean has a moral responsibility to stop Javert falling on his sword over the denunciation, but not to keep him on the police force.  If Javert is going to be this vague, it’s his problem.

• The Burning Coin of Shame was so melodramatic Hugo’s ghost is presumably kicking himself for not making Valjean pick it up in the novel.  I don’t hate it, but when you’ve out-melodrama’d Hugo it may be time to take a step back.

The Bad

• That red font looks worse every time I see it.

• Valjean’s godforsaken ponytail.  WHY.  It’s not even attractive!  Who the fuck decided to lift every aesthetic decision from the 2012 movie except for the period appropriate hair!?

• Speaking of period appropriate hair, your prospective employers might be less likely to assume you’re a slut if you put it up like a respectable woman instead letting it flop all over the place like a prostitute, Fantine.

• I don’t love Fantine’s intake interview.  There are ways they could have depicted the factory’s morality policy without making Madeleine come off like such a nosy sexist asshole, and Davies should have found one.  Being the nosy sexist asshole is Victurnien’s job.  Madeleine is meant to be the paternalistic, well-meaning sexist asshole.

• The Brick glides over Marius’s childhood in a few sentences, so I appreciate there is a difficulty in finding incidents to fill the Pontmercy sections in these early episodes.  TOO BAD.  You decided to merge the timelines, Davies; it was self-evident that this was going to be the major problem with that approach when you did it.  THIS IS THE LIFE YOU HAVE CHOSEN.  Go over the novel with a fine-toothed comb or make some shit up, but it was your responsibility to  fill this gap somehow.

Killing off Georges Pontmercy ten years early is not a solution.

a) You gave us Hot Sad Dad Pontmercy and then tore him away from us two episodes before you needed to.  HOW DARE.

b) The Marius timeline in the Brick makes sense.  His father dies, he finds out Georges loved him from Mabeuf, he starts researching his dad and Napoleon and grows estranged from his grandfather, Gillenormand kicks him out of the house, he meets Bossuet and Courfeyrac.  Marius’s internal growth, the timeline and the plot all work together as a cohesive whole.  Fuck knows how any of that is going to work out now.

c) Marius is still going to be a child next week, so killing off Georges didn’t even solve the problem, it just postponed it for the space of a single episode.

d) The gap wouldn’t even have been that hard to fill!  Georges could have fought with the prosecutor about his decoration and spied on Marius at church or something.  It would have given us a chance to meet Mabeuf properly.  Fuck this bullshit so much.

• This is a minor thing, but there should be women at Gillenormand’s table.  Ancien Régime salon culture was run by women; the exclusion of women from male political and social life in France was a nineteenth century invention.  The Brick is very clear about this – Gillenormand generally hangs around with Baroness T.  History has enough sexism in it already.  There’s no need to invent more.

• I have no objections to Valjean firing Fantine in person, but the toy bird introduces a pretty serious flaw in Victurnien’s “She’s a callous whore who doesn’t care about her child” case, one you’d think Valjean might notice.  There’s no reason for it even to appear in that scene!  Have the Tories cut the BBC’s budget so much they can’t afford script editors?

• Gosh those are some bright, white street lamps they have in Montreuil.  I wonder what sort of oil burns with such a constant flame?

• If Davies wanted to dissociate his adaptation from the musical, a good first step might have been to spend much less time with the campy tooth and wig guy.  Fantine’s plot arc was actually fairly good up until that point, but after that it really did devolve into misery porn.

• Oyelowovert has a very pretty face.  What he does not have is any coherent motivation for his behavior in this episode.

Javert’s plotline was such a fucking disaster in this that I gave it its own post.

• If Davies insists on doing this stupid Arras entrapment plot, the least he could do is give us a Robert and a Genflou to make up for it.  Well, we got a Robert but not a Genflou, and I’m mad.

This episode was a mix of the sublime and the grotesque, and therefore, in a certain sense, truly worthy of Victor Hugo.  But Gavroche is going to have a lot of work to do at the barricade to make up for this mess.

#Les Misérables 2018 #Les Mis Adaptations #Les Misérables

[live-and-in-living-colour]

Ok, I have painted my nails, I have cookies. I am ready for whatever episode 5 holds in store... which is probably more staring

Or as it turned out, this week was better than last week I mean it wouldn’t take much to be but still, I miss Les Amis

Also as rude as I am about the show, I do believe the actors are doing a fantastic job with the material, and that the cinematography is beautiful. But there’s only so much they could do when everyone is so OOC

In conclusion

So posters are going up but everyone is just... rebellion? 

But Javert is justice orientated then revenge?

That was an interesting scene, but Eponine and Azelma were never arrested

Goodness, are we not even at the point of Red and Black yet?

THERE’S MORE BOYS, DID THE REST OF LES AMIS SHOW UP?

Where did Marius get that hat? It is a nice hat

So Thenardier faked his death?

Cosette’s actress is very beautiful, but that blue dress looks terrible 

Marius climbing over the gate instead of knocking is the most Marius like thing he’s done yet

That still doesn’t look like Valjean

That probably shouldn’t have been something I laughed at, but yet I did

Has Valjean not said anything about leaving yet? He’s gone on a trip, and Cosette wanted to go? I’m confuddled

Ok, maybe things were different back then, but I’m pretty sure a guy randomly finding you, leaving a note in the garden, but not knocking on the door, or apparently signing a letter, is a lot of red flags

So one moment she’s terrified, the next she thinks going outside at night to maybe meet a boy is wise... Cosette is all over the place in this version

Marius is very Marius in this episode

Oh good, women fainting, I thought this stopped being a thing after the 1950′s films

WHY DID SHE FAINT

WHY IS HE KISSING HER WHEN SHE IS FAINTING?

I HATE THIS

GAVROCHE! Make this better please

Wait so they’re doing the stories with the two little boys? But... they’re meant to be his half-brothers

This is a very non-organised revolution 

Grantaire is too sober 

What... is... even... happening?

Is Marius going to bang his head against a tree for 2 hours? That would make me forgive everything

Nope, he did not

Is heartbroken over losing his grandson, and yet is still an arsehole towards him

I really hate this Enjolras, why is he so angry and cruel? This isn’t an attack on the actor, I think he’s playing it well, just not sure why he has been written like this

That red dress looks so much better

Ok, but legit... DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING

It feels like Les Amis have got caught up in a situation, rather then you know... ACTUALLY BEING A PART OF IT AND BUILDING A BARRICADE

I have seen no reason for them to listen to Enjolras 

I get that building a barricade is important but... this is taking a very long time

Is now the time for Cosette to act like a 3 year old? THERE IS LEGIT FIGHTING EVERYWHERE

Marius is still as dramatic as ever

That just... that looks identical to the musical, like at least not use a red flag

Who the hell aimed at the flag? 

Grantaire’s horror is an interesting angle, and the actor plays it well, but it still feels like it’s the wrong person

Didn’t Enjolras have that beautiful thing with Courferyac (I think but honestly it might have been Combeferre, I can’t remember) about how the soldiers could have been his brother or something like that? Not happy about all of this? 

Why is Marius now hiding? Did I forget this?

Oh was the blowing up thing actually from the book, I thought Tom Hooper added it, that or Davis is copying the musical

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO ENJOLRAS IN THIS VERSION

Why would he be talking about valuing his life? It just... doesn’t make sense

Why does it feel like Marius is in love with Cosette and Eponine in this version?

In fairness, Eponine felt a lot more book like this episode, and this is even lines from the book. If only last weeks episode wasn’t so bad

“I really did love you” god dammit, they ruined it

Least it was a forehead kiss, not one on the lips, thought they might go there

Why is he still grabbing things from children? Has he learnt nothing from episode one

“If I die” STOP USING THE MUSICAL LINES IF YOU HATE IT SO MUCH

So next episode the barricade has to fall, the wedding, and lots of death... WHAT IS THIS PACING?

OMG a next time trailer!

They have the hand holding? Which might be more significant if they had done the Les Amis justice

#les mis #Les Miserables #les miserables bbc

[bbclesmis]

Collider: Lily Collins on ‘Les Miserables’, Isolating Herself to Play Fantine, and ‘Tolkien’

From award-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies, the latest dramatic adaptation of Les Misérables (airing on Masterpiece on PBS) is a six-part epic story that delves deep into the many layers of Victor Hugo’s story. Exploring the cat-and-mouse relationship between Jean Valjean (Dominic West) and Javert (David Oyelowo) with a modern relevancy in its powerful themes, plotting and characterizations, all set against the backdrop of France at a time of civil unrest.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, actress Lily Collins (who plays the tragic seamstress Fantine) talked about the incredible experience she had making Les Misérables, the unexpected way they shot the episodes, why it was a gift to get to explore all of the characters so much deeper with the extra hours to tell this story, her first introduction to the story, and staying in Europe to explore some of the surrounding areas once the shoot wrapped. She also talked about her experience making Tolkien and what a huge The Lord of the Rings fan she is, as well as her desire to do comedy, even though it makes her nervous.

Collider:  You’ve certainly been amassing a very interesting collection of characters.

LILY COLLINS:  Oh, thank you! I know. My friends are like, “Couldn’t you maybe just do a comedy?” And yes, it’s a dream. I wanna do a comedy. Something more lighthearted, for a second, would be nice.

Is comedy something that you’ve actually tried to actively seek out?

COLLINS:  No, it’s something that I now am wanting to put out there. I would love to do a comedy. I love comedies. I love old school comedies, and new comedies. In order to appreciate the darker stories, it’s always nice to have the lighter. My friends hear about all of these filming experiences, where I’m off on these different locations, shooting these characters that have tragic stories, or that have tragedy but end in positivity, and they’re like, “Just do a film that we can go to, on a Saturday night, and watch and laugh about it.” One day, I’ll get there.

Does comedy make you nervous?

COLLINS:  Yes. There are so many different forms of comedy. There are so many ways to make someone laugh, and sometimes things are not funny. It’s a different world. But just like being surrounded by David [Oyelowo] and Dominic [West] on [Les Misérables], to be surrounded by the best comedians would only teach me more. I feel like it would maybe help raise my game, with the ability to improv. When you’re faced with anyone at the top of their game, it makes you wanna be better. It also just helps you be more in the moment ‘cause you’re not worried about what they’re thinking. They’re just on it, and that really helps. With [Les Mis], some of the dramatic moments, where my character is having to flail for her life and begging for her life on the floor, I can’t think about any of the peripheral distraction. You just have to be so focused in on the other person, when that person is giving you everything. Whether that’s in comedy or drama, it’s a huge gift ‘cause then it allows you to just give of yourself, so much more. It’s a blessing. Comedy is just a different beast, but it’s still a beast that I wanna be able to be a part of.

When you finished this, what did you go do?

COLLINS:  It’s interesting, in the beginning, I was really quite frustrated with the order that we were shooting this in, but then, I actually ended up loving it. I did Tolkien, in the end of 2017. Then, I did the table read for this in January 2018, went straight home to L.A. and packed, and then went off to Kentucky and did Bundy (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile). Then, I went back to L.A. and had three days, unpacked and re-packed, and then went to Brussels and started shooting this. I had no idea where I was, but I honestly think that helped so much. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile was dark, so going from that mind-set into this one was really helpful ‘cause it wasn’t like I was shooting some comedy and had to backtrack, all of a sudden. My second day of filming on this was the deathbed scene in Episode 3. I literally started at the end of Fantine’s life, in the dead of winter, and then go back in the summer, where I then had Episode 1, when you meet her, and she’s young, naive and falling in love. At first, I thought, “Oh, my god, I’m starting this at the end. No pressure there. I don’t even know where I’ve come from, to know where I’m ending.” I didn’t think that was ideal. But then, it actually turned out to be perfect ‘cause not only was it minus temperatures and snowing, and she’s wearing minimal clothing, but I looked so sick and decrepit. I had never really spend that much time in Brussels, so I was feeling all of these feelings that Fantine would have been feeling, which was brilliant. I try to use my surroundings and my feelings for the betterment of the character, and I got to take it all the way to the end and see the worst, before stepping away for about a month and going back in the summer, when it was 95 degrees, and sunny and beautiful. When I went back, I got to shoot all of her beginning, and because I knew how bad it got, I got to make the happy side 10 million times happier, just to show the distinct polarities between the two. I think starting in the middle would’ve been the worst because not knowing where you started or where you’re ended would mean that you wouldn’t know how far to take it. I was so happy to end in the summer, on a happier note, because I was more back to myself than I would have been, if I’d ended with the death sequences. I was already in Europe, so I just stayed in Europe and took a little vacation with a friend of mine. We went to Italy, and attended a film festival and just detoxed a little bit. And then, I went back to L.A.

It seems like it would have been so hard to end with her death, and then have to walk away.

COLLINS:  It would have been too finite. I would have needed to completely revamp myself and come back to some reality. But because I had that break, in between, to go back home before going back in the summer, I was able to become excited to go back, knowing it would just be a completely different environment. I was gonna have friends because Fantine has friends, so there were gonna be younger people that I could go exploring Brussels with. Also, during the summer, I found out that you can just take trains and hop around to different castles and explore Brussels for the beauty of what Belgium has to offer, as opposed to holding myself away and being somewhat depressed because Fantine was depressed. I didn’t want people visiting. I was like, “I love you mom, but please don’t come visit me because I think [the isolation] is actually really helping.” She’s alone in the world, so I was like, “I’m just gonna hole away, for a second.” It required that.

It sounds like a pretty incredible experience, overall.

COLLINS:  I grew up in Europe, but I never had that experience of backpacking around Europe, or taking a train somewhere, just because. On this, I made a friend for life in the hair and make-up department, and when the schedule permitted or on weekends, we would just take a bag and get on the train in the morning and go to Antwerp, Bruges or Ghent, and visit castles and cathedrals, or just go eat somewhere different, and then come back. It was a version of just hopping around Europe with a backpack. I went to England, and I went to France. The fact that, within an hour and a half, you could be in a different country, and they didn’t even ask for my passport, was amazing. I really felt like I got to have this epic adventure while shooting an epic adventure. It was great.

When you have so many extra hours to explore this story, does it seem like such a gift, as an actor, to get to go so much deeper than we typically get to see in film versions?

COLLINS:  Oh, yeah. It’s written in the novel, but you’ve only really heard about her falling in love and having a child through a song lyric. With this not being a musical version, it enabled us to see more of the drama. It’s a six-parter, so you get many more hours with the ability to show more, especially for Fantine. In the film version, you usually cut into her life, half-way through when she’s already working in the factory. I was excited because Tom [Shankland], our director, was very much about inserting bits of myself into Fantine. What does her naive, youthful, more loving side, at the beginning, look like? When she’s meeting this guy, what does is that scene like? When she has Cosette, what is she like as a mother? How does she hold her baby? How does she calm her down? Those were all these things that we got to discuss and decide together. At least we’re not singing, so you can’t have that comparison. We haven’t really seen any of these scenes before. To me, that was actually really exciting. There’s more screen time to figure out who she is. All of that would’ve been backstory, which is great, but I got to live it out. I think that also allows the audience to have more empathy for her, at the end, when you’ve seen her get left. You’ve seen those moments where she’s hopeful, so the audience will be like, “No. Don’t open the door. Don’t go in the dark. Don’t go into the dungeon. Don’t fall for him ‘cause he’s gonna leave you.” Because we all know the story so well, to allow the audience to have more empathy for her, at the end, is made stronger by the fact that they get to fall in love with her, at the beginning. That allowed me to know where I was going, and where I had been, in order to have those deep polarities, and to create such an arc for a character. It’s six episodes, and I die in Episode 3. Even though she’s only in half, what you’re left with of her has to help propel Jean Valjean, for the rest of the story, so you need to see all of those sides of her, that provided for that lightness in her, just to believe the story, as much as you can.

What was your first introduction to Les Mis?

COLLINS:  Being in school and going to the library. I used to go to the library a lot, to do research for projects, before the internet was really big. Wikipedia was not a valid source for your bibliography then, so you needed to go to the library and source it. I was always at the library, and Les Mis was always there. You can’t miss it. It’s so massive, but it’s also such a classical story that’s well-renowned. You’d hear about it in school, especially talking about the French Revolution and post-revolutionary France. It’s so historical and it’s based in so much history, that it was impossible not to know about it. And then, growing up in the West End and seeing the musical, it’s the longest running musical. And then, it was in the States. So, if you’re a lover of literature and entertainment, in whatever capacity, it’s impossible not to know what Les Mis is. And I had friends in the musical movie, so I had heard about that and their experience doing it. I just never knew that it would ever come around to me. Had I known that, in elementary school and high school, I probably would have done more highlighting and taking notes. Knowing and deeply respecting it, but never expecting to be in it, was the best attitude to have. I felt like I had grown up around it, but at the same time, knew very little of what my character would go through, at least from the beginning. It was a really nice introduction to it, in a new way. So, I felt like it had always been there, and yet there was still so much to learn, that I could almost start from the ground up with Tom. He didn’t overly encourage watching any of the previous renditions again. It was really novel-based, with deep discussions about how we felt the scenes should go.

While it’s such an epic story that must be a dream to tackle, it also seems terrifying.

COLLINS:  Yeah, there definitely was an anxiety portion of it, just because I always wanna give 110%, with whatever I do. This character required the physicality and the emotion of 110%, all the time, especially in the later part of her life. So, I was really excited to see where I would be able to go with it, just to know what I’m capable of, but also to allow the character to live and breathe, in a new way. It’s something that I will never forget shooting. Everything about it is just so stunning. Some moments are like paintings. It’s just beautiful. I’m really happy with it.

What was your experience making Tolkien like?

COLLINS:  That was actually really fun. I’m a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I love anything magical, like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and any of that. I’m like, “Just give me a marathon.” But, I didn’t know much about Tolkien. I had actually auditioned for one of the elven characters in the last The Lord of the Rings films, but I obviously didn’t get it. It’s ironic that I ended up playing the woman that inspired the elven characters and the elven queen. I’ve been a huge fan of Nicholas Hoult for years. I’ve known him socially, and he’s just such a wonderful person. So, when I heard that he was doing it, I was interested. And our director, Dome [Karukoski], is such a visionary and so passionate about what he does. With the aesthetics that he wanted to bring to this movie, I thought the way that he was gonna blend the fantasy world of Tolkien and the reality of his life was such an interesting marriage. It could have gone in many different ways and been either too fantasy-based, or it didn’t weave the two correctly. But the way that he wanted to tell it was so inspiring that I thought, “This is the way that I’d want to tell the story.” And it’s Fox Searchlight and their taste in movies is so interesting. The way that they tell these stories behind the stories about authors is so fascinating. As a kid that grew up reading, I hope reading doesn’t ever die out. Reading is becoming less and less of a thing for kids, in terms of holding a book, and I remember holding books, and going to the library and just immersing myself in these worlds. The Lord of the Rings was a huge part of that ‘cause it had so much fantasy. So, to be able to bring it to a new audience, in a way of better understanding where it all came from, humanizes the stories in a way that we haven’t seen before. And we got to shoot in Liverpool, which was really fun. I’d never been up there. We also had a really fun cast, with a lot of young people that are fascinating. It was a really fun period drama. Les Mis is quite dramatic. With this, you really get to see a young couple that’s growing up and figuring out who they are, and encouraging one another to embrace those quirks that people don’t normally understand. There’s a lot that can be understood through Tolkien about today’s society. It’s a very modern story, just set in a different time.

Les Misérables airs on Sunday nights on Masterpiece on PBS.

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#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #Lily Collins #fantine #Interviews #articles #collider #pbs

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Brickclub: 2.3.9

Another chapter of Thenardier being awful! God I’m so glad we’re done with them for a while after this. I don’t think I can take much more of this.

So Thenardier tries to fleece Valjean out of an astonishing amount of money, and Valjean, to his credit, is not thrilled about this fact. I think that lends credence to the idea that he knows full well when he’s being ripped off and goes along with it anyway. Here, he knows he’s being ripped off and is not interested in playing along.

Thenardier then changes tactics and launches into a genuinely nauseating speech about how he actually loves Cosette and will miss her when she’s gone. I don’t even know what he’s going for, other than an attempt at seeming respectable and getting information. Was he trying to get Valjean to offer to pay without having to be asked? Was he fishing for information about who Valjean really is? Did he realize a touch belatedly that without Cosette around there’d be no one to do the housework? I am so confused.

Thankfully, Valjean is having none of it. He’s generous and tends to want to see the best in people, but he has his limits, and the Thenardiers clearly hit those a long time ago. Probably about when he saw Cosette in the forest and realized who she was. He pays the money, probably to shut them up and keep them from raising too much of a fuss, and makes it extremely clear that he will not be keeping in touch. No doubt he’s heard about their letters to Fantine, eternally demanding more money.

And so Cosette, as well as the doll and the coin from last chapter, now has a full set of clothes, complete with shoes. (Although part of me wonders how well it fits her. Did Valjean buy for a normal-sized eight-year-old girl, in which case she’d be swimming in the outfit, or did he have a guess as to the state he’d find her in and deliberately buy small? Honestly, I don’t know which possibility is more upsetting.)

And as they walk away, hand in hand, Cosette turns her eyes heavenward. This child, who has never been to church in her life, is still in the grace of God.

#brickclub #2.3.9 #this fcking book though

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- they actually.....almost ran the entire show???? like they only had the last scene left to do when rehearsal ended. I’m shaken.

- okay so there’s now Another New Sound Guy but he’s also named Chris like the last new guy and I get to the theater and he wasn’t there yet but Judi yells across the room to me “Okay there’s a new sound guy who has the same name as the last guy and he looks just like our old music director! take a moment to process that!” asdfghnjm

- and then he gets there and he’s a nice guy but apparently he’s used to Working Alone so no one knows what I’m really doing now???? Cause they don’t really need me??? But then the kids only wanted me to put their mics on so I felt validated lmao

- The directors daughter is....blatantly into this Chris guy too asdfghjnm, she was coming on SO HARD and every time he left the room she was like ‘Am I flirting too much??? Am I obvious??? Do you think he thinks I’m insane????’ and I was just laughing at her asdfghnj this woman was ready to jump his bones at a moments notice 

- the kids sang the entire opening number completely monotoned???? Like it’s a hard song so I guess they were nervous about messing up but it was so funny lol

- there’s a tween(tm) in this cast....and I think....she was the tiny little girl who played young cosette when I was in les mis….and if I’m right and that’s her....I’m going to have a stroke....omg

- how do I put this nicely???? there’s absolutely no coherent plot.

- like MAYBE I wasn’t paying as much attention as I thought I was but I really think they just. cut too many scenes since it’s the junior(tm0 version asdfgh barely anything made sense

- the stage kisses were hilarious omfg

- this theater is DISGUSTING there were mystery stains everywhere and a cockroach ran at me so like I might burn the place down by the end of the week we’ll see

- there was a dog there???? like one of those mini-poodles???? someone just brought their dog???? idk

- God there’s this kid who’s been in almost every other show I’ve done sound on and he came up for his mic and is like “I already Know....it’s happened again” asdfgh because every damn show his costume is so weird that it’s near impossible to get a microphone on him. why does this keep happening....why is this his Brand(tm)…..

- a guy who I used to be in the shows with (like...every show I was in lmao) showed up with his three year old and was talking with me, the directors daughter and the sound guy for a while. we couldn’t agree what the best show the company’s ever put on was, but we all agreed that you can’t plan to have a threesome with someone, it just has to happen in the moment. azsdfghnjm

- all the kid’s singing was really good!!! the acting....good for 9 year olds lol

- there’s this whole thing where the con guy goes on a spiel about how the little boy was ‘built to be a clarinet player’ but then they gave the kid.....a trumpet

- “oh that got racist real quick”

- the guy that visited??? the director asked him, in complete seriousness, to do Hair next month. He is 25 with a child asdfgh

- the costumes for the band in the finale number...they’re cute but...there’s so much glitter on them I genuinely lost my vision for a moment. like it was really Too Much omg

- gossiping about the love lives of 10 year olds

- overall though like....the first rehearsals never work out that well I’m almost nervous to say it but this honestly might be one of the kiddie groups best shows??? We’ll see how tomorrow goes!!

#mm vagueblogging 2k18 #theater #musicals #molly mumbles