Andrew Davies ditches the musical and drags Victor Hugo’s brick-thick novel back to its soot-black source, turning in six hour-long films that feel like 19th-century reportage. Dominic West’s Valjean carries the haunted bulk of a man who has slept on planks for 19 years; the moment he snaps at the Bishop of Digne is less redemption than exhausted surrender. Opposite him, David Oyelowo plays Javert as a Bible-quoting functionary whose vanity lies in believing the law is divine, not man-made. Their 17-year chase is shot by Stephan Pehrsson in slate-grey widescreen that makes the Belgian locations look lit by whale-oil.
Davies keeps the social ledger open: Lily Collins’s Fantine is dispatched to the workhouse in real time, her hair shorn and teeth pulled while the camera watches; Erin Kellyman gives Éponine a raw north-country snarl that makes the Paris barricades feel like a council-estate uprising. The June Rebellion of 1832 arrives in episode five, but the barricade is built from splintered wardrobes and dead horses, not West End plywood. Olivia Colman and Adeel Akhtar play the Thénardiers as small-business ghouls running a scam on every side of the revolution, proof that poverty does not ennoble.
The series aired on BBC One across six winter Sundays, drawing 6.3 million for the finale and winning Bafta craft awards for costume and photography; Davies’s script, laced with gutter-French slang and police-chic jargon, never once mentions 24601.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2018
Created by: Andrew Davies
Showrunner(s): Eurydice Gysel, Simon Vaughan, Dominic West
Writer(s): Andrew Davies
Producer(s): Chris Carey
Cinematography: Stephan Pehrsson
Music: John Murphy
Main Cast
Dominic West as Jean Valjean
David Oyelowo as Javert
Adeel Akhtar as Thénardier
Emma Fielding as Nicolette
David Bradley as Gillenormand
Enzo Cilenti as Rivette
Lorcan Cranitch as Prefect of Police
Olivia Colman as Madame Thénardier
Erin Kellyman as Éponine
Donald Sumpter as Mabeuf
Turlough Convery as Grantaire
Archie Madekwe as Courfeyrac
