THE GRINNING MAN- THE TRAFALGAR STUDIOS LONDON- NOVEMBER 2017 TO MAY 2018

Les Mis established that Victor Hugo wrote the kind of high-powered, theatrical novels that beg to be the basis for blockbuster musicals. Joey and War Horse confirmed the allure of puppets as heart-wringers in stage shows. Now these two strains have been brought together in a new musical that, despite its illustrious antecedents, is wholly its macabre, distinctive self. The Grinning Man is a pared-back adaptation of Hugo’s 1869 novel L’Homme Qui Rit (“The Man Who Laughs”), devised at the Bristol Old Vic by Tom Morris, who directed War Horse before he became artistic director at Bristol, and his creative team – music by Tim Philips and Mark Teitler, book by Carl Grose, lyrics by all four of them. It’s now casting its strange spell in London at the Trafalgar Studios