40 Les Misérables backstage secrets from the 40th anniversary cast, including Michael Ball's 'ridiculous' superstition

The beloved Boublil and Schönberg show is known for its heart-wrenching plot, pitch perfect commentary and of course, a belter of a soundtrack.

So, if you're someone who hums Look Down on the tube or blasts Master of the House in the car, here's a few backstage secrets you might have never heard before.

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Best Les Misérables backstage secrets you never knew

Les Misérables is the longest-running musical in the West End

Now celebrating 40 years, Les Mis is the longest-running musical and second longest-running theatre show in London, beat only by Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap.

...and in the world

Closely followed by Phantom of the Opera, which has run for 39 years in the West End and had a 35-year stint on Broadway.

The musical is NOT set during the famous French Revolution of 1789

Contrary to popular belief, the musical – based on Victor Hugo's famous novel – starts in 1815, and follows events over the next two decades including the Paris Uprising of 1832.

The musical was first performed in France in 1980

The French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein and music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil.

Boublil and Schönberg came up with concept while at a performance of Oliver! in London and spent over two years writing it. However, the show only ran for three months.

Before transferring to London in 1985

Three years later, Cameron Mackintosh heard a recording of the concept album and decided to make an English-language musical. Working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Mackintosh created the musical and staged it at the Barbican Centre in 1985. It was a sell-out and in December 1985, Les Misérables opened at the Palace Theatre.

Initial critical reception was... less than favourable

You might be surprised, but the first reaction from critics was pretty negative. The Mail on Sunday's Kenneth Hurren wrote in his 1985 review: "Watching it is rather like eating an artichoke: you have to go through an awful lot to get a very little."

While the Sunday Telegraph's Francis King described the musical as "a lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness".

Despite the fact it featured Patti LuPone

LuPone, who was already a Tony Award-winning star from Andrew Lloyd's original production of Evita, played the role of Fantine. She eventually won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

...and Michael Ball

At the time, Ball was making his West End debut as Marius Pontmercy, which came after breaking through in the Manchester Opera House's production of The Pirates of Penzance.

Ball has since told the BBC: "We thought we'd be looking for new jobs after the first night."

In 2004, the show moved again in London

After 19 years at the Palace Theatre the musical moved again to the smaller Queen's Theatre, now known as the Sondheim Theatre.

It has now been to Broadway three times

Les Mis premiered on Broadway from March 1987 with a few members of the original cast transferring over, including Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean.

Boublil and Schönberg took the opportunity to shorten a few scenes and remove two songs for pacing. At the time, they said to the New York Times: "We are taking this opportunity to rethink and perfect, to rewrite some details which probably no one else will see, but which for us are still long nights of work. There are things that nobody had time to do in London, and here we have a wonderful opportunity to fix a few things."

The musical ran at the Broadway Theatre through to 2003, and has been revived twice since: 2006 to 2008 and 2014 to 2016.

The original Broadway run saw a huge slip-up from Colm Wilkinson

That first Broadway run also saw a few mistakes from cast and crew. In an interview with Playbill, Randy Graff – who played Fantine – recalled a time Colm Wilkinson completely forgot his cue, leaving her to die on stage alone.

She said: "I dragged my dead body back to bed and covered by humming weird song phrases. Finally, Colm ran onstage and as he sang phrases like, “Your child will want for nothing” he would then whisper “Randy! I’m so sorry!” throughout the song."

Backstage is now a well-oiled machine

Nowadays, the backstage crew run a very tight ship. Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com Jean Valjean actor Killian Donnelly described it as a "choreographed piece," saying: "It's the classic swan. Gorgeous elegance above the waters and you don't see the rapid paddling beneath. I always think we could sell a ticket for what happens backstage because it's so tight."

While Jac Yarrow (playing Marius) said: "I think it would blow people's minds because obviously you watch the show from out front and it's huge and so epic and you've got these huge sets, barricades and towers and carts and all these elements – You walk off stage and you hit a brick wall!

"Les Mis honestly has the hardest working crew in the West End. They're winching things up and down constantly."

The crew members use special hand signals to guide actors backstage

One particular technique Donnelly revealed was that the crew use special hand signals and lights to help the actors walk from one backstage door to another.

"I walk through a door and one of the stage crew has a hand up and they're shining a light on the back on their hand. When the light goes out, I know to walk, and I'm in pitch black and walking until they shine a light on another hand, and I stop there and can just about see my queue to go on stage."

All the props and letters on stage are real

In a chat with Fantine actress Katie Hall, she shared her favourite detail that all the letters read out on stage are real handwritten notes made by the props team. This adds a layer of detail and authenticity that the audience never sees but has proved incredibly helpful for the cast.

But not all the props have been safe from Alfie Boe

Not all props have survived for long, though. When Alfie Boe first played the role of Jean Valjean on stage he admitted to causing more than a few breakages.

"In the very early stages of me singing the role I would get so excited that sometimes I would throw down the the bag at the beginning of the prologue, which had the candlesticks in," he said exclusively to RadioTimes.com. "I would throw it down with such force that I would usually break them or they'd they start buckling. They didn't look great in the end and I felt so guilty."

...neither were the show reports

To keep morale up, Boe also had a habit graffitiing the stage managers' show reports, although he made sure he was always the butt of the joke.

"Sometimes I'd come off stage and scribble things like 'Alfie did OK tonight, messed up Bring Him Home – not great.'"

Live torches are also used

Among the real props on stage, live flames are used for the candles and torches – rare on the West End today. Plus, the props department have three period rifles which fire blanks on stage to create a realistic sound effect.

Which led to an on-stage fire at a tour show in Cardiff

Unfortunately, the real flames led to a small onstage incident in 2019. While touring in Cardiff the actor portraying Javert inadvertently lit a small part of the barricade set on fire and caused it to go up in flames.

The show then stopped for 10 minutes while the fire was put out, although some audience members have said they believed it was all part of the show until the actors pretending to be dead got up and walked off stage.

The show was also famously interrupted in 2023 by a Just Stop Oil protest

In 2023, the show was embroiled in more controversy when four members of Just Stop Oil stormed the stage during Do You Hear the People Sing. The group locked themselves to the stage and subsequently posted on X: "4 people are locked to the stage of the French-revolution-themed show. Valjean steals bread to feed a starving child. How long before we are all forced to steal?” Five people were arrested following the incident.

There are over 100 cast and crew members involved in the show

Les Mis has more than 100 cast and crew members in total including 33 adult cast members, a full backstage team and orchestra.

And over 5,000 pieces of clothing

There are a whopping 392 costumes in Les Mis, including 85 wigs and 5,000 separate pieces of clothing.

For Jean Valjean, some costume changes are as little as 60 seconds

For Killian Donnelly, costume changes are incredibly pressured... but also fun!

He said: "I'm standing there at the end of the soliloquy, and then I run off. Someone grabs my bag, and I sprint into an abandoned empty shower room where there are two people and they whip the wig off, dry the blood off my face, give me the clothes to change into. It's less than 60 seconds, and it leaves us with about six seconds to walk back on stage.

"I love it. It's that adrenaline that gets you through."

Although the record is Fantine, at 15 seconds

The actual shortest quick change on the show however comes for Fantine, at just 15 seconds, and because of the short turnaround, it occurs at the back of the stage.

Female and male ensemble have up to 10 changes per show

The ensemble cast have to play hundreds of different roles throughout the show, often having to change costume up to 10 times.

In fact, many principal cast members reappear in disguise throughout the show

Katie Hall revealed to us that as Fantine dies (spoiler, sorry) in the first act, she reappears several times on stage as different ensemble characters.

She said: "I get to come back for One Day More and I'm on the barricades as well in a different wig and different costume. Then I take all that off and I put my ghost outfit on and I come back for the epilogue.

"It's actually one of my favourite things about Les Mis is that we all sort of lift each other up at different points of the show. It really makes for a really nice feeling in the company."

Pranks are common backstage

During his time on the show Alfie Boe became one of the many backstage pranksters who were keen to keep the mood light. He laughed: "I would try and hold people back from running on stage or poke Marius in the side when he's over my shoulder sometimes, that sort of thing.

"We have to have a laugh, you know, we have to have a bit of fun because I guess it's such a heavy show it can sometimes get to you."

As is the family feel between cast members

"It really is a family," said Boe, "And as the lead role this follows on. I feel such a responsibility to be a team leader of the cast and to protect people. I try to really look out for everybody and listen to people's issues and problems, and I used to sit in my dressing room with my door wide open for people to come and sit and then have a chat about whatever they wanted, and it was lovely."

"It's almost like as a team, as a family, we've united over something pretty damn special. We have to get through a performance of Les Misérables as a family, so you connect in a very big way."

Producer Cameron Mackintosh is very hands on to this day

Cameron Mackintosh has been at the helm of Les Mis from the very beginning of its West End run, and yet the producer is still just as involved to this day.

As Hall simply put it: "Cameron knows how to put on a good show."

Even picking out the smallest details

Killian Donnelly described how the producer can still be seen picking out carpets and décor for the theatre during rehearsal while also taking time to work closely with the cast: "If he's not sat among the creatives, he's over with his architect, picking out wallpaper for the stalls, bar for the toilets, for the seat cushions.

"And then he's still coming up to the actors going. 'I love what you're doing there, that's amazing.' He is so hands on in the best type of way."

Which is why actors keep coming back to Les Mis

Les Mis has an incredible retention rate among its cast. Actors like Katie Hall who played Cosette have come back as Fantine, while those who play Marius or Enjolras (like Michael Ball and Killian Donnelly) eventually graduate into lead parts like Valjean or Javert.

As Donnelly said: "You can never turn your back on Les Mis, it just doesn't work. Once you're in you're a champion of the show. Plus it helps there are so many different age ranges in the show, I played one of the students, then I played Enjolras, and then I went away and aged and get a phone call: 'I think you're ready for Valjean.'"

Meanwhile Yarrow, who has only played Marius so far insisted his dream next step would be Madam Thénardier!

Alfie Boe and Michael Ball have a pre-show ritual which has to be done "properly"

On an episode of Saturday Kitchen Live, Alfie Boe confessed he and Michael Ball have a pre-show ritual that has to be done "properly" before they ever go on stage together.

He explained: “We do this hand slap. We do this clap high five thing before we go on and then he’s at one side of the stage and I’m at the other and we have our earpieces in.

“And we always whisper to each other just before we walk out on stage, we always whisper ‘love you, love you too’.”

Plus, Ball has a superstition no one can break

Alongside the hand slapping ritual, Ball doesn't allow any whistling backstage. As Boe said: “Back in the day, stage crew used to be sailors. When sailors weren’t at sea, they’d come to work in theatres because they knew how to rig scenery.

“The way they communicated on board ships was by whistling to each other so they did that in theatres. So if you whistle backstage, the superstition is a piece of scenery will come flying in.”

Boe added that if he's ever caught whistling by Ball, he does a truly "ridiculous" thing: "He says you have go out of the room, turn around three times, swear, spit, knock on the door and asked to be let back in.”

There have been 45 cast recordings of Les Misérables

There have been 45 stage cast albums of Les Mis, including 7 studio cast albums, and 8 concert cast recordings.

Translated in to 22 languages

Les Mis has been performed in 22 different languages across the globe, its next stop will be Shanghai, China, from November to December 2025.

And it has toured 53 countries

The recent Arena Spectacular tour has taken the show's total up to 53 countries, including Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Japan.

It can take up to 22 hours to take the show out of a venue on tour

According to Leeds Heritage Theatres, while on tour it takes 14 45-foot trailers around 22 hours to take the show out of a venue and three days to put it in the next venue.

So cardio training is key to success for cast and crew

The cast cited intense cardio as one of the key challenges for working on Les Mis! Yarrow, who has transferred from the Arena Spectacular concert tour to the full on-stage experience described the "struggle" of the show's physical demands.

"The singing kind of isn't too much of a struggle," he said "But the physicality and the climbing the barricades and all of that is something that your body really does have to get used to."

Despite the massive success, the show has only won eight Tony Awards

The show's original Broadway run scooped up eight Tony's including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

And three Olivier Awards

Meanwhile, it only won one Olivier during its first run – Best Actress in a Musical for Patti LuPone – and has since won the Audience Award for Most Popular Show in 2012 and 2014.

It's now celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special anniversary gala

Now, the iconic musical is celebrating 40 years on the London stage with a special anniversary gala that sees the likes Patti LuPone, Alfie Boe, Michael Ball, Samantha Barks and Carrie Hope Fletcher returning.

Following the concert announcement, Cameron Mackintosh said:

"It is an extraordinary feeling to be celebrating our 40th Anniversary of Les Misérables on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue.

"Having staged several of our other milestone performances in iconic venues like the Royal Albert Hall for our 10th or the o2 Arena for our 25th, I wanted to bring this special celebration home back to its roots.

"Unlike any other musical in history, Les Misérables has continuously triumphed in, not one, but two different and equally successful stagings of the musical, a hugely successful Oscar-winning movie, and spectacular staged concerts in both vast arenas and theatres around the world.

"Victor Hugo’s creation has proved to have no bounds, continuing to reach new corners of the Earth, playing to different races in their own languages, swept along by Boublil and Schönberg’s inspirational musical score. The reaction of the audience, wherever they are on the planet, is always uplifting; just as Victor Hugo hoped it would be when he first published the novel in 1845."

Make sure you also check out our full guide of the best West End shows and our guide to Hamilton behind the scenes secrets. Plus we chatted exclusively to Alfie Boe and Killian Donnelly about their Les Mis careers.