Beyond The Barricade – Richmond Theatre & Touring

Beyond The Barricade at Richmond Theatre, London and on tour.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Bringing the magic of musical theatre to the masses has been the mission of Andy Reiss and David Fawcett ever since these Les Misérables veterans met up in Manchester in 1996 and eventually took Beyond The Barricade on the road.

This year marks their 20th anniversary tour and you only have to see the love audiences have for them and the great modern musicals from Les Mis onwards to realise what a winning formula they have.

I picked up the tour at Richmond on a windy, icy Sunday night and was nicely surprised to find the 800-seater theatre at least three-quarters full, plenty of the younger generation in the audience as well as the blue-rinse brigade, all giving the show a long, loud standing ovation.

It had been a difficult evening with the four singers reduced to three for the second half because Katie Leeming was too sick to carry on. Fortunately, she was well enough to continue with the tour to its next destination, the Liverpool Empire.

The secret of their enduring success is giving the public what they want, the big numbers from shows like Miss Saigon, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, The Lion King and, of course, a large dollop of Les Misérables as the finale.

But time marches on which is why a couple of songs from Hamilton have displaced old favourites and lesser-known shows like City of Angels and the yet-to-arrive Broadway hit Anastasia are given a place in the busy programme.

Starting from small beginnings with charity concerts, they signed up Rebecca Vere and Rebecca Thornhill, both with Les Misérables credentials and West End experience, branded the product Beyond The Barricade and launched their first national tour, doing 30 gigs in 1999, a figure which last year had mushroomed into almost 90 and included 40 dates in Australia and New Zealand.

Apart from the traditional tour stops, they have also performed on cruise liners the Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary II and Queen Victoria, played the Royal Albert Hall in a gala concert with a choir of 100, and visited Hong Kong, Spain, Denmark and Malta.

Since the two founding Rebeccas, Reiss and Fawcett have worked with 31 other leading ladies over the 20 years, the current group featuring Leeming, once a West End Eponine, and their newest recruit, the glamorous Polly Tierney, a former Cosette who joined in 2017 after working with Reiss on one of the many tours of Evita.

“I can’t think there is a town of any size in the UK where we have not sung,” said Reiss who directs the show and is a man of many parts with singer, actor, keyboard player and producer among other accomplishments on his CV.

Both he and Fawcett have played Jean Valjean, the latter, with his wonderfully rich voice, singing him many times during two years in the West End as Brujon and covering for the main part.

The harmonisation of the two men and Tierney on ‘One Day More’ considering the huge ensemble that does the number on stage was quite exceptional, the high spot of the evening and particularly brave with Leeming missing.

Fawcett is not just a powerful singer, he’s a great joke-teller as well. I won’t spoil it for future audience because they are all hilarious, particularly the one about the window cleaner, so funny that I’m awarding the show an extra star.

Instead, old as it is, I’ll tell you my own Les Mis story: two old biddies come out of the show and one says to the other “what a lovely evening, Doris, but which one was Les?”

Only past cast members of Les Misérables are permitted to work with the group who are backed by long-servers Russ Kennedy (bass and tuba), Dave Williams (drums and percussion) and David Lane (keyboards).

Reiss is very proud that every note, whether sung or played, goes out live. No tapes or backing tracks. The show also uses images relating to each song on a back-screen plus smoke and flashing lights, but basically it is a simple, no-nonsense format, just what it says on the tin.

Jeremy Chapman

www.beyondthebarricade.com/tour