He looks like he's the local jolly innkeeper !!! 😂

That...

That was supposed to be who...?

Does anyone know the story behind when and why musical Javert acquired his long hair? Judging from the original London cast production photos, Roger Allam had short hair in 1985. However, Mann and Quast appear to have long hair in 1987. Why did the production team decide to make this change? It's undeniable that loose, long hair looks impressive in "Javert's Suicide," but I'm sure they had a more substantial reason for it. Maybe some of you know.

so, there's no evidence stating that this is explicitly what happened, but I've always suspected that Terrence Mann had a heavy influence on the Javert redesign. when speaking about his Javert audition, he said:

(he was actually given an Enjolras audition but went all-in on getting the Javert role, and his performance and appearance were apparently so striking that he got the part on the spot. honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Nunn & Caird committed to the long-haired look then and there.)

for funsies here's a comparison of Mann in the Javert wig in 87, and with his hair tied back in a role filmed two years later:

the wig wasn't the only Javert redesign that happened during the transition to Broadway. Roger Allam's Javert - and his immediate replacement in the 85-86 West End run, Clive Carter - are dressed in what I lovingly refer to as the original turtlevert fit. man's squarer than the brick.

from Broadway 87 onwards we saw Javert with a much more streamlined look. again, Mann seems to have been the first to wear that iconic Javert coat, with a silhouette far more flattering than the West End one. potentially designed that way to compensate for Mann being a dancer and not being very physically imposing, I don't know.

Quast's Javert also had the same redesign, but since the original Broadway production ran from March 87 and the Australian production didn't start until November of the same year, I think it's fair to assume that the Australian one took the design cues already created by Broadway.

finally, Stars also had a rewrite between the West End and Broadway, with the original London version having a much quieter ending. Mann seems to imply that he had a hand in the rewrite:

sidenote: an almost identical redesign process happened during CATS' transition from the West End to Broadway only a few years earlier. the Rum Tum Tugger's design was particularly influenced by Terrence Mann - him again! - preferring to play the character with a Mick Jagger influence rather than the Elvis vibes that Andrew Lloyd Webber originally wanted.

again, this is just my interpretation, but I can 100% believe that something similar happened with Les Mis: almost everything about Javert was redesigned to fit with Mann's acting style and appearance, and it ended up becoming the blueprint for what we have today.

A little present for dear @caffeinatedj 💖

It's fanart of her fic Can You Feel the Love Potion Tonight? Go give it a read!

Jean Valjean’s horrible awful relationship with religion is really fascinating— the way religion becomes deeply meaningful to his life but is also still a tool of social control that is used to violently oppress him. I love this line where he describes how bishops would “preach” to him in the galleys:

Jean Valjean’s early relationship with religion is as this horrible violent obligation. He attends “mass” in the galleys, where cannons are pointed at him, so that if anyone in the crowd acts up they can all be massacred. The bishop is also so impossibly distant that they can’t even hear him. No one in prison is trying to actually speak to Jean Valjean or the other convicts; they’re just violently forcing them to act out the empty forms of Christianity while not allowing them to truly participate in it.

And while Myriel does change his life, and his faith…. Jean Valjean never fully internalizes the way Myriel treated him as an equal and insisted that they were brothers. And that’s in large part because of the hostility or terror which which the rest of the Church and society views him.

We’re told later that in the convent, Jean Valjean prays to the nuns doing penance, because “he did not dare to pray directly to God.”

There’s a fascinating tension between the fact that religion is extremely important to Jean Valjean’s life, but also, that same religion is often used against him as a tool of violent social control. He belongs to a religion that rejects him violently. He prays to a God that he does not dare to pray to directly, out of self-loathing. It’s a really strange complex relationship.

I wanted young Napoleon in his older self uniform and then I remembered I am an artist and can do anything hehehhehrhr

I gave up with the clothes but this went surprisingly faster than my rendering before

Les Mis Bears Collection 🧸

My life has definitely become richer since they arrived. I’m on a mission to make sure they never become "Les Misérables"!

“The cavalry charge at Waterloo – was it not Ney's own initiative?”

The traditional 'Saint Helena School' (the position interpreting Napoleon's assertions as 100% factual) has held that the cavalry charge at Waterloo was Ney's unilateral decision. However, recently, counterarguments to this view appear to have emerged. The following is from the opinion of the recently published British author Brian Williams. I found it persuasive, so I quote part of it.

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…The decision to launch the assault was made by Napoleon who felt had no option…

…In the thick of the fighting around La Haye Sainte Ney received the message from Napoleon to advance against Wellington's centre with Milhaud's IV Reserve Cavalry Corps- two cuirassier divisions. If such a note ever existed it was lost. Perhaps it read something like 'The Emperor is counting, to effect a victory, on the energy of the Prince of the Moscowa'…

…It should be remembered that in the years after Waterloo none of the surviving French cavalry commanders wanted to take responsibility for the disaster. Ney was dead. Napoleon was alive and busy writing his history…

…The picture now gets more confused. Milhaud is said to have ridden over to General Lefebvre-Desnouettes commanding the Guard Light Cavalry Division positioned behind his corps. Milhaud took him by the hand 'I am going to charge; support me!' The Guard traditionally only ever took orders from Napoleon himself but now the crack Red Lancers of the Guard and the Chasseurs a' Cheval of the Guard-2000 sabres-would follow behind the cuirassiers…

…It takes time for three divisions of cavalry to form up in lines of regimental columns, ample enough time for Napoleon at La Belle Alliance to notice the movement and send an aide galloping to Ney with an order to abort…

If Napoleon was too focussed on the threatening Prussian movements on his right to observe what Ney was doing then Soult would have alerted him to any unauthorised movement of the cavalry. If as sometimes suggested Napoleon was having a nap then he would have been woken. No order to stop was issued because Ney was doing exactly what Napoleon had ordered him to do.

On the Road from Waterloo to Paris by Marcus Stone

By Paul Emile Boutigny

Wow. I feel honoured to be the first one to ever draw these guys cuddling on a train ride. 🙌

Arthur: Now once more, I must ride with my knights, to defend what was... and the dream of what could be.

— Excalibur (1981)

Speaking of Tmann. THE most insane Javert’s intervention. The uncomfortably long dead silent babadook ghost entrance while he pulls up Valjean. Giving his hat to the poor assistant and snapping his hands together while taking a long breath and singing with his eyes screwed shut like he’s on the verge of screaming. Gleefully kicking the people on the ground. Literally melting Thernadier’s vertebrae with powerful psychic beams. 

“Marshal Ney’s eldest son”

“Dance tune composed by the Prince of Moskowa (Napoleon Joseph Ney, the eldest son of the Marshal) for his friend the Count of Cambis.Entirely autograph tests. (Fragment of a manuscript from the Opera Library.)”

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Aglaé Ney secretly married in Italy the future général de brigade Louis d'Y de Résigny, aide-de-camp to the emperor, "the most worthless of beings" according to the Duchess of Elchingen (Ney’s second son’s wife) but he seems to have sincerely loved Aglaé and her sons, as there are many letters in which they express their affection for the "good Résigny", the "excellent Résigny" …

…The Marshal's children inherited a dual legacy of scholarship and artistry, as the Ney family also had a strong taste for music: the Marshal played the flute, and a cousin, Jeanne Ney, delighted those around her with her charming voice and her brilliant and cheerful correspondence…

…All four sons are artists, drawing, singing, playing the piano; we have seen that these gifts, as well as their ease of style, were inherited from both their father's and mother's sides…

…Their main objective at each new post is therefore to obtain a piano that will help them forget the boredom of the provincial garrisons, about which they never tire of complaining. Léon, the most musically gifted, composes lyrical works, two of which are performed at the Opéra-Comique.

(Napoleon Joseph Ney)

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source: “Les Archives du Maréchal Ney et sa famille”

-words by @plaidmax

After the hours of darkness and cold, Valjean’s hands are almost too much. They skim over Javert’s face, his shoulders, as if desperately seeking a handhold; as if Valjean is the one on the verge of falling.

“My friend, are you hurt? Good God, when I saw it was you—”

The moment Valjean’s knife parts the rope of the martingale, it is as if that tether was the last thing holding Javert upright. His knees buckle—with a cry of surprise Valjean catches him and lowers him to the ground. Even through his coat the cobbles drain the heat from his body as surely as water through a sieve, and yet Valjean’s arms are warm.

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