Episode 1

Episode One

Mike Walker’s sweeping adaptation of Victor Hugo’s epic masterpiece set in the age of French revolutions. Redemption, sacrifice, love and survival collide in a Paris where poverty is criminalised and cruelty masquerades as order.

Jean Valjean ….. Danny Sapani
Inspector Javert ….. Robert Glenister
Monsieur Thenardier ….. Daniel Mays
Madame Thenardier ….. Monica Dolan
Fantine/Cosette ….. Bethany Muir
Marius ….. Jack Nuttall
Eponine ….. Megan Richards
Gavroche ….. Billy Gilbert
Enjolras ….. Chris Lew Kum Hoi
Young Cosette …. Ava Talbot
Landlady ..... Rebekah Murrell
The Bishop ….. David Holt
Madame Victoire ….. Jessica Turner
With Joseph Ayre, Jason Barnett, Sam Swann, Joe Jameson, Debbie Korley and Sumaiya Chaudhary

Directed by Tracey Neale

Written by Victor Hugo
Dramatised by Mike Walker
Production Team:
Producer & Director, Tracey Neale
Technical Producers, Keith Graham, Peter Ringrose, Andrew Garrett and Sam Dickinson
Production Co-Ordinator, Ben Hollands
A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4

In our darkening world this is the time for Les Misérables. Set in late nineteenth century France the story builds up to that moment when students begin to build barricades and fight for a fairer France. A sweeping, deeply humane call for justice, compassion and reform. It's an epic story with political urgency, social critique and timeless human drama.

With economies struggling, countries re-arming and a harder edge to political discourse, it feels as if the type of systemic cruelty that Victor Hugo describes in Les Misérables is the world we are moving into. But Les Misérables sends a message of hope down the years: revolutions may fail, but it’s the striving of the human spirit towards kindness that matters.

Jean Valjean, a convicted thief for stealing a loaf of bread, is granted parole but struggles to escape his past. He breaks parole and reinvents himself as factory owner and Mayor but is relentlessly pursued by Inspector Javert’s obsession with duty. Jean in an act of redemption tries to save Fantine. This abandoned and unmarried woman has had to leave her young child with the Thenardiers, Inn Keepers, so she can find work. Fantine’s secret is uncovered and she is sacked and falls into abject poverty. Fantine tragically dies and Jean is determined to give a better life to her daughter, Cosette, and he saves her from a life of drudgery with the Thenardiers, vicious and merciless predators. The Thenardier’s children Gavroche and Eponine are determined to break free of this path and they follow an exciting, heart-breaking journey that will end atop the revolutionary barricades.

The lives of all the characters intertwine as Jean Valjean’s journeys from prisoner to redeemer and Cosette from a life of drudgery to a life of happiness with Jean, her rescuer. It is one of the great chase stories - driven policeman Javert pursuing the ex-criminal Jean Valjean across France and across the years to a showdown only one of them will survive. It is a moving tale of sacrifice as Fantine, a young, deserted mother rejected by society gives all for her child. And a love story emerges when that child, Cosette, emerges from a cruel childhood to find a safe haven with Jean and then love with Marius, a revolutionary fighting for a better world.