Les Misérables Reviews: What the Critics Say

The current production opened at the Sondheim Theatre in January 2020, in a theatre rebuilt for the show to continue its long run. The national critics averaged four and a half stars. These are the sort of reviews you'd expect, given its immense worldwide success. It's also very fair. The show has been slightly altered (and improved) since the original opened.

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The Critics' Verdict

These notices are from the production's press night in January 2020. The company has turned over entirely since, so the praise for the staging holds and the cast descriptions do not.

Four five-star reviews, from The Guardian, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Sun. Four stars from The Standard, The Stage and Time Out. Three from The Times.

The Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish summed the evening up in five words: "perfect theatre, in a perfect theatre".

The Guardian's Miriam Gillinson made the point most useful to anyone choosing between this and the version they remember: "this new version is less showy than the original; no longer a spectacle to lean back and admire but, instead, something more truthful and, ultimately, more moving".

What the Reviews Praised

The score, first and always. It is sung-through, and after forty years the songs are world famous. Every review took that as read and moved on.

The new design. The revolving stage of the original production is gone, replaced by backdrops built from Victor Hugo's own paintings. Even The Times, the least impressed, called it "enchanting, like watching a Romantic panorama of grimy, pre-Haussmann Paris come to life" (3/5).

The scale, despite the trimming. The Stage noted that the show "has been scaled back in so many ways" and that even so "there's no less sense of spectacle" (4/5).

The company. The Daily Mail called the production "an absolute blinder" (5/5).

Where Reviews Were Mixed

Length. The Times was the one clear dissenter, finding it "overlong and clunky", while adding that "there was much to admire in the performances" (3/5).

And the loss of the original staging. The Stage said plainly that "it is a huge shame the original production no longer exists". If you saw Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre, this is a different staging: the revolve has gone and the barricade now arrives from the wings rather than being built in front of you.

Time Out, giving it four, put the balance about right: "this imperfect, absurd, magnificent show".

It was not always reviewed like this. When Les Misérables first opened in 1985 the notices were mixed and mostly cool, and several critics doubted it would run. Audiences disagreed, and it has now played more than 16,000 performances in London.

Is Les Misérables Right for You?

You will probably love it if you want the biggest and most serious of the West End musicals, if you already know the songs without quite knowing where from, or if you are looking for a show that a family with children of about ten and up can take seriously together.

It is sung-through, with effectively no spoken dialogue from beginning to end. That is a different experience from a musical where songs punctuate a script, and it is the thing people most often wish they had known.

You might want something else if you want a light or funny night out, or if gunfire, smoke and flashing lights would be a problem.

Call us on 020 7193 9050 if you are weighing it against something else.

Book Les Misérables Tickets

Currently booking to 2 October 2027 at the Sondheim Theatre.

Our prices are all-in: the price you see is the price you pay.

Full times, cast and seat advice are on our Les Misérables tickets page.

Book tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050

Sources

The Guardian · The Daily Telegraph · The Times · The Stage · Time Out · The Standard · Daily Mail · The Sun