Best of 2017 Countdown #4 :: Today’s birthday boy George Blagden was as quietly magnificent through 2017 as we could have hoped. He opened the year with an astonishing photoshoot for Vanity Fair Italy and progressed through acting in another season of Versailles and promoting it in British Vogue and all over media, finished ADR for No Postage Necessary, which recently (and finally) had its world premiere, and appearing onstage again in London in the disturbing and different The Pitchfork Disney. Meanwhile, George also put in time as the walking example of both what the right personal trainer can bring to your personal party, and the effect of serious red carpet ragdoll chic. Delightfully, George also welcomed the very charming and life-giving Louis the Yorkie to his and our existences, and again, we are #blessed. [ 5 | 6 | 7 |  8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #9 :: Aaron Tveit is still living his best sometimes-shabby, sometimes-silly, sometimes-chic life. Chief spent a relatively quiet 2017, doing some small film and TV work while also touring his own concerts, gracing the odd photoshoot, stumbling into opening nights of shows, visiting friends and former castmates, and of course rocking some fascinating shirts, hats, and glasses. The most vibrant moments of the year came from his run as Bobby in Company for Barrington Stage, and of course, his crowning moment unleashing the inner Enjolras on Barricade Day. But as the man himself says, 85% of his work is his hair, and said hair had another truly and typically magnificent year. [ 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #5 :: Fra Fee is as ever sublime and ridiculous. Fra began the year with an epic trip to Peru and settled down for a bit before embarking on The Ferryman, a play that’s been stunning and unnerving audiences in London for a while now and has been extended. Fra’s also performed in a few concerts, run musical theatre workshops in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, and supported mental health charities and organizations like #iamwhole and the Samaritans UK. And of course, being Fra, he’s also brought the marvelous goods by way of some fabulous glasses, hats, and new arm art. Ever full of roundness and radiance, the lad’s doing all right. [ 6 | 7 |  8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #2 :: Hugh Skinner was perfection, end of. 2017 marked the end of Hugh’s work in W1A as the beloved and not actually that hapless Will Humphries, the continuation of his hysterical turn as Wills in The Windsors, a bit of hipster activist silliness as Erik in Hampstead and a cameo as a strong and silent first officer in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (not pictured here because there were so many other glorious photos to celebrate). Interspersed with all this were the usual red carpets and press nights, at which Hugh worked both his occasional elegance and some shabby tan chic. Most vibrantly and excitedly came the trailer and many behind the scenes pictures from Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again, in which Hugh’s embodying the younger Harry to delicious effect. Finally, while the role he played in it was more terrible than charming, Harlots at the very least provided the most gorgeous filmed shot of Hugh I think I’ve ever seen. I cannot wait to see what more beautiful and baffling surprises will come from Hugh Skinner in 2018, but am content just knowing that they will indeed come. The hardest and most varied working Ami just keeps killing it—sometimes slyly, sometimes with silliness, sometimes silently and softly, and perhaps in 2018, with something like a shout. [ 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #3 :: Hyoie O’Grady ... happened. Truly this piece of work is the hatchling of canon and fanon, bringing some serious chops to a very fresh, brisk, and young take on Enjolras, as you’d expect from a Thaxton protégé and someone who clearly knows well how to flip the switch into high Enjogear, to the extent of being one of few London Enjolrai to die with his eyes open, as it were. That he does this while also keeping his feet firmly on the slightly manic ground and giving some excellent face on social media, even when he’s not entirely sure how it works, is a testament to his essential ... Hyoiejolrasity. No, of course that’s not a real word, but then this fella rather defies conventional description in a lot of ways. I expect his take on Enjolras will mature and round out a little more in the new year for several reasons (and would grow by gorgeous leaps and bounds if the direction would allow him to slow down, but that’s a different post), but even so, even now, I am more than a little enchanted. [ 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #1 :: Him, brought home. [ 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

What could I possibly say that I haven’t said already, and multiple times? Maybe this: that Killian Donnelly’s return to Les Miserables to play Jean Valjean six years and a day after he took his last bows as Enjolras seemed like an only half-possible dream, one I imagined might come true in another five years if we were lucky, but then just—did, here and now.

Investment can be defined as an act of devoting time, effort, talent, or emotional energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result. To say that Killian is invested in Les Mis, and vice versa, would be a colossal understatement, but let’s go with it anyway. In an ideal world, an actor retains more than just respectful memory of a good first professional job, especially if said actor has walked into that job through the side door, utterly without training beyond amateur dramatics, but with one hell of a rich voice, a rough presence, and enough self-deprecatory cheer to knock over jaded producers. That Killian takes every chance possible to credit Les Mis for everything it’s given him since all the way back in 2008—for the education and experience and friendships and the rounding off of his many physical and vocal edges as he progressed from Swing to Enjolras in 2010/2011—is a testament to his love for the show, and good god, does it ever love him back. If I remember correctly, the only male roles he’s not played in the show are Marius and Thenardier, and he’s found something to bring to every other.

Still, Valjean is no bone-throw of a gift to an actor, even one so deeply part of the Les Mis family. It is an investment in an actor and his gifts both as actor and as man, a mutual commitment between show and actor to carry this monster on that actor’s shoulders and back, sometimes somewhat literally. He may have been surprised by the call to audition for Valjean—I say may because I don’t entirely believe that, whatever enthusiastic bright-eyed and bubbling noises he’s made to that effect in interviews—but he should not have been. No one in a position to influence or be influenced could have missed the trajectory Killian had taken over the last few years, and the timing was good for both the show and Killian himself. The trust implied in allowing Killian to step in with what was essentially fewer than ten good days of rehearsal after he’d left New York speaks volumes; it means a great deal more than just thinking he’d remember how to deal with the revolve.

So, the casting. After an early spring of going over and over it again in my head and weighing several things that had happened around and with Killian in NYC over the weeks before and one offhand conversation, I woke up on Thursday 27 April thinking this is it, this has to be it; if it’s going to happen, make it today. Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail typically releases casting news and/or gossip on Twitter late on Thursday nights in the UK/early Thursday evenings in the US, so I had one screen open with that while another showed something that … might have been work, if I hadn’t been so distracted. Then the news came, and it’s rather pointless for me to even pretend I didn’t tear up and feel that old fanfic trope, that release of breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. (There was also some light screaming.) The rehearsal period was going to be so short and brutal, and Killian would be coming straight off an (albeit joyously, finally) emotional run in Kinky Boots on Broadway, but it would be so worth it.

The West End Live performance was a ride. Killian’s Bring Him Home had me rather nervous, and I didn’t love every choice he made, but One Day More was perfection—it was so wonderful to hear Valjean carry the song, and to hear that glorious voice ring out every single One day more! through the crashing wildness at the end of it. I knew at that point that all would be well, that even so soon into the run he’d found something to act as foundation and that he’d continue to grow in the role—and he has. The photo above of him onstage in Trafalgar Square, alone, looking out into the crowd that day made my cold, blackened heart fill with warmth and an absolutely ridiculous, unearned pride that hasn’t abated yet.

Is Killian’s Valjean perfect? No; this year’s resident direction has rushed the production to a point where emotional impact suffers, costing Killian in terms of getting some of Valjean’s truly strong moments across; and he’s occasionally still just as baffled by the end of Who Am I? as he was when he was covering the role. Is his Valjean truly his own? For the most part; there is little to point to in his take that one can say ‘belongs’ to other Valjeans, certainly not to the ones with whom he worked from 08–11. Is it worth the time and effort and the emotional energy—the investment of the show and of Killian himself? Indisputably.

No matter how many words I throw at this screen, I can’t put across how much it is. That beautiful clear bell of a voice that both carried the most gorgeous version of Bring Him Home I’ve ever heard is not what you hear now; it has matured, obviously, as has Killian. But the years between then and now have not harmed much, and in terms of acting, he can go to the most haunted (and hunted) places now, in ways that never rang completely true before, and as I suspected would happen, in the one-on-one scenes, everything he’s learned over the past few years—most especially in Memphis—has made him an incredibly generous actor, tender and careful in one moment, and challenging and thrillingly baton-passing in the next.

(And given that it is me writing this, a moment in the shallow end of the pool: he looks fucking incredible from Monsieur Madeleine until the finale; it’s as if costumes and makeup and wigs have been waiting for this Valjean their whole lives. I confess to making terribly obscene noises at the first appearance of M. Madeleine in Jeremy Secomb’s scarecam video, and the production photography had me half off my chair. No one is surprised, either by that admission or that I gave that photo precedence above.)

Killian has said that when covering Valjean, the show seemed to fly by in an emotional and physical rush; I imagine both that he’s learned the pacing now but still gets caught up in it, and that while he’s not entirely comfortable in the role of Show Dad the way some Valjeans have been, his leadership is in place and his love and respect for his castmates is genuine. He offers advice when asked (and is down for the Yoda comparison) and strongly encourages the work of the Swings and ensemble. For the beginning of the run, Killian was able to share the stage with his very good mate Jeremy Secomb—a nice way to get his feet back under him again, especially with such a compacted rehearsal time, and a few months they both deeply appreciated. His relationship with Hayden Tee is obviously different, but still massively good fun. Both Javerts have challenged and welcomed and worked with him so well.

And come 22 January, everything levels up another notch and possibly to infinity with the return of David Thaxton as Javert. This was my greatest wish for Killian-as-Valjean: to have this remarkable foil in Thaxton, to allow their intense rapport to translate to these two roles. (For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’ve redacted a short essay on the loss of their potential Enjolras & Grantaire double-act, which never properly materialized after Killian chose not to accept the role of Grantaire in 2009.) I’d hoped for it for a very long time, knowing that that the possibility required Killian to mature on several levels and Thaxton to not grow bored or bitter. Having talked about the possibilities involved there quite a lot before, I won’t go further into them now (though I certainly could, given Killian’s take on Valjean as it stands at the moment), but I will say that I cannot wait to see what they bring to and out of each other again. (And to catch Killian watching Stars from the wings again, losing it on a whole new level.) As a fan of the show itself, of each actor, and of the combination of all three, I will put on the table right now that the next six months of Les Miserables in the West End are going to be for the books. As the song says, and all our debts are paid.

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you understand a bit why I can’t—and have no intention to—shake that ridiculous, unearned pride in Killian, for returning to the Queens, for bringing with him glorious perspective and maturity and joy and responsibility, for coming back—home.

Best of 2017 Countdown #13 :: A wildly self-indulgent set of Killian bundled over the past year in what is hands down the most successful happy opening gift-spell this ginger could have cast. My love is boundless; my delight is endless. [ 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #7 ::  A family among themselves, through friendship, and on and on. With a third of the Amis based in NYC for a healthy amount of 2017, there were not as many opportunities for reunions this year, but they certainly made the most of what they could. Fra visited Killian and Alistair in New York while they both worked on Broadway, and suffered the consequence of an Aaron twitterpout before he made time for a breakfast check-in with the chief as well. Matthew Seadon-Young and Jamie Muscato worked and played together in Big Fish, and Gabriel Vick arranged a benefit gig for Samaritans UK, at which Fra and Jos Slovick performed solo and with Gabriel. Alistair and Killian also took part in some NYC promotion together with other actors who’d crossed the pond. Jamie also had time for reunion throwdowns with fellow extended amis and former castmates in other shows as well, Stevee Davies and Samuel Weir, while Mat and extended ami Andy Coxon attended the wedding of their Mountview classmate (and former West End Marius) Craig Mather. And of course, there was the delightfully surprising reunion of Killian, Fra, and Dan Huttlestone, their Gavroche grown up just insanely quickly before everyone’s eyes. [ 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #12 :: Danny Whitehead, his hair, and his personal persuasive cover Enjolras techniques made everyone in the Queens up to and including the antagonists fall in love, reconsider their life choices, and possibly join in whatever crusade was on offer. [ 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #8 :: Killian took no time whatsoever falling back into Muppetface line in and out of costume as the Valjean era began and went on. It’s been a wonderful, terrifying time of Muppet with friends and fluffballs, bringing a blurry Excited Christmas Face in his own Muppet's Christmas Carol, reveling in life back at the Queens with castmates, photobombing some more castmates joyfully (and, well, droopily), and even providing posterity with an excellent Old Man Indignation Trauma Muppetface in the Robbery production photo. We are #blessed.  [ 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #10 :: An absolutely revitalized Jonny Purchase was a delight. Purchase continued to essentially run the Queens, working that glorious black outfit as Feuilly on the excellent regular while also occasionally saving the day as an emergency cover Marius and as first cover Enjolras. (With previous runs as Joly and Combeferre, he’s swiftly ticking all the Amis boxes.) He’s also continued to rally his fellow Les Mis troops, whether in insane costume at the Rugby Sevens, or getting the full captain luxury treatment with other members of Les Mis FC in the training spa at St. George’s Park, and pull out all the stops in shiny suit and shoes in concerts like the BBC Somerset Christmas show. He also teaches music and drama workshops in Yeovil and elsewhere. But perhaps most important to Jonny this year was the arrival of little Hadley Phillips to him and Sorsha Talbot-Hunt in September. What a year it has been. [ 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #6 :: Raise a glass to Iwan Lewis and Gabriel Vick, who inspire and continue to be inspired. This year Gabriel starred in Promises, Promises and Alain Boublil’s work-in-progress musical Manhatten Parisienne, performed with his former Once co-stars in their band The Phoenix Collective both to benefit Samaritans UK and in a special Christmas gig, and welcomed new baby Callum with his wife Kerry Howard. Meanwhile, Iwan pressed on raising his baby, Cirencester’s Barn Theatre, of which he is artistic director. Iwan’s thrown himself into the work and the community, running youth productions this year of Suessical and Spring Awakening; both rallying for and working on “A Song for Cirencester,” the proceeds of which benefit local mental health counseling; and producing the Cirencester Christmas Spectacular. Gorgeous and generous gents, gents, gents; may they always be so. [ 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 ]

Best of 2017 Countdown #14 :: Celebrating Team Covers in Les Mis London, 2017–2018. [ 15 ]

The West End cast of Les Miserables this year is again teeming with absolutely gorgeous covers, including:

• Adam Bayjou (alternate Valjean); Antony Hansen (2nd Valjean) and Shaq Taylor (1st Javert); and Alice Ellen Wright (1st Fantine); • Jonny Purchase (1st Enjolras) and Ciaran Joyce (2nd Marius); Alice Ellen Wright again (1st Eponine); Rebecca Lafferty (3rd Eponine) and Holly-Anne Hull (1st Cosette); • Sophie-May Feek (2nd Fantine); Katie Kerr (1st Madame Thenardier) and James Hume (1st Thenardier); Catherine Hannay (2nd Cosette) and John Lumsden (1st Marius); • Hugo Chiarella (2nd Thenardier) and Anna McGarahan (2nd Madame Thenardier); Andy Conaghan (1st Grantaire); Oliver Brenin (3rd Valjean); • Lee Van Geleen (2nd Javert); Danny Whitehead (2nd Enjolras) and Jonny Purchase again (emergency Marius); Lauren Soley (2nd Eponine); • Emma Barr (3rd Fantine); Ciaran Joyce again (2nd Grantaire), and Holly-Anne Hull again (emergency Gavroche)

Best of 2017 Countdown #15 :: Stuart and the Extended Amis!

As usual, we begin with the quiet but fulsomely talented Stuart Neal, still tapping away in the West End as Billy Lawlor in the revival of 42nd Street. Many of the extended amis from the 2012 Les Mis film also continued to shine this year, including Jonny Purchase, a stalwart of the Les Miserables West End cast currently playing Feuilly and covering Enjolras (and knocking out the occasional emergency Marius); Andy Coxon, who starred in the 50th anniversary production of Hair and in Yank earlier in the year; Jos Slovick, who received excellent reviews in the Chichester production of Fiddler on the Roof and also kept gigging with the Phoenix Collective; Jonathan Dudley, cheering it up as ever in Book of Mormon in the West End, as well appearing in the South Pacific concert at the Royal Albert Hall; Chris Milford, currently working as a puppeteer and magician in Circus 1903 in Las Vegas; Rhidian Marc promoted the Tiger Bay musical with John Owen Jones between stints in Pippin; Sameul Weir featured in the National Theatre’s production of Common; Joseph Peters continued in the musical All or Nothing and worked with the Barricade Boys group; and Matthew Corner starred in the final cast of Jersey Boys in the West End. Onward and upward, everyone.

not the long walk home that will change this heart / but the welcome you receive at every start :: ten favourites of killian from 2017

To round out all my ridiculous Best-Ofs for 2017, a compilation of nonsense from he who wears it well, with accompanying extra nonsense from me who writes too much of it. Your usual mix of hyperbolic description, sprinkling of armchair psychology, Emotions Business, and deep sighing below the cut.

Killian’s first trip to Washington DC started the year off on the very right foot for me, with a) DC being my second home city, and b) his getting there and loving it so terribly much before ... well, before. Anyway. His second trip was lovely, too, but I’ve already shared my favourite picture from that time elsewhere. In this shot, he’s a mess and knows it, but glorying in the chilly sunlight and the daytrip adventure monument-hopping escape-from-New-York fun of it all. I absolutely love this photo.

The trip to the Grammys with Matt Henry to represent the Kinky Boots OLC recording’s nomination was amusing and lovely, as things tend to be when these two are together. As expected, the album didn’t win the award, but as also expected, they both looked gorgeous, Killian made a hash of his travel back to New York and Matt rescued his sorry self, and they pretty much giggled their way through 30 hours of madness. RESULT.

I have absolutely nothing even remotely intelligent to say about Old Man Hat Potato. I just love everything about it. Except the jumper. I hate the jumper. No one is surprised. Even if his possession of this particular hat comes from 50% his own enjoyment of it and 50% his competition with James Hume to see who can be the Actual Old Man of Revolve 32, it doesn’t matter. He’s in a hat, and it’s not a baseball cap. I’m delighted.

When the professional photos from West End Live began to spill out, this one became my instant favourite. Killian’s command of his role (in its definitions of character and function) is so visible here, and his presence so steady; he is truly at his best. At the time, I posted this shot of Killian and said this is everything. It was; it still is; it will continue to be.

While I know how good New York was for him and to him, Killian’s return to London was so lovely. I’m thrilled that he so happily fell in with his beloved Kinky Boots girls Bleu Woodward and Emma Crossley only a few days after landing back in the city—especially before the Valjean summer shearing, heh—and that he rejoined his Phantom castmates and good friends Jeremy Secomb and Jo Loxton in Les Mis, one afternoon also reuniting with another castmate from Phantom, Layla Harrison.

And then of course there was Fra, wonderful Fra, with whom Killian reunited in New York before the end of his run in Kinky Boots. This photo was a ray-of-light-fucking-delight for many of us, I know, and I’ve used it before in this year’s Best Ofs, but come on. This day in particular was likely one of the five happiest Killian spent in NYC over the five months there, and can’t you just see it in his expression. They are glorious. They know it, too, but we’ll forgive them that.

And so on to this year’s first of two Killian-as-Smug-Little-Shit moments, the bouncy little secret in his eyes as the announcement goes over the Kinky Boots backstage tannoy that Killian! Brought! Doughnuts! He may have teased about buying his castmates’ affection with doughnuts, but there’s something underneath all that we won’t go into here; instead we’ll concentrate on how lovely he looks, and not just because that’s one hell of a scarf, ahem.

I would normally have held the next shot back for a future compilation of You Complete Muppet, Killian, but I found it so fluffy and adorable, it sneaked its way in here. Killian’s showing off Ireland to Taylor Louderman was a time of genuine joy (novella on the need for which in Killian’s life from late winter/early spring of 2017 redacted) and, well, I’m super-fond of those sunglasses, and don’t actively want to set the cardigan on fire. Everybody wins.

Last, and least only because the quality is definitely not what I would wish, a second smugness, but one of a very different sort; while Killian’s not afraid of a camera, he rarely gives a professional one such an edge-of-a-smirk staredown like this, and I love it. The TDF charity show Kinky Boots put on was a delicious moment of wardrobe fun for me, as a) The Waistcoat came out to play, and I am always down for some Terror Threat Level Waistcoat, and b) Killian looked fantastic, and held his own onstage even with two other Charlies strutting their heeled stuff with him. I don’t have any great love for KB or the role of Charlie Price, but I do love that Killian found a way to make it his own, in London and in New York.

When I made Killian’s leaver picset at the end of his run in KB on Broadway, I stole blatantly from Hamilton and called it in new york, you can be a new man, and I do believe he became one, but I am so, so happy he’s back in London (and if I’m honest, no longer in Forest Hill, with all its ghosts) with everything he learned and gained and loved still within relatively easy reach. It’s hard to say what comes next, post Les Mis (as I do not think his run will go longer than one year without Thaxton coming too divine intervention); my Spuddy Senses point strongly in the direction of the South Bank, but it will be interesting to see, whatever happens. What an insane, incredible year 2017 was for Killian; the world is so wide open now for 2018 and beyond.

Tomorrow begins my Best of 2017 posts (forewarned: the tag will be best of 2017 countdown funtimes) and I’ve been setting them up in my drafts and queue, and while I don’t think any of the Best Ofs will surprise anyone, I find that I’m one short! Were there really only 14 posts’ worth of lovely fannish things? I’m going to have to think about that! Maybe the empty space (#10) should be Purchase and the wild year he’s having. Or just a gif of some redhead screaming because 22 days into 2018 the desired outcome of all those metaphorical sacrificed goats will finally happen. I JUST DON’T KNOW.