Original Les Mis star goes on tour

HUGH Jackman may have wowed cinema audiences as the Bishop of Digne in the Les Misérables movie but as any musical theatre fan will tell you – long before the Hollywood actor took on the role – Colm Wilkinson was Jean Valjean.

In June, the man known as “the voice of God” will play his first Edinburgh concert when he brings his Bring Him Home tour to the Playhouse, for an evening of music and stories.

With one of the most distinctive voices in the world, the Irishman is best known as the original Jean Valjean and Phantom, roles he created and embodied in the London, Toronto and New York productions of Les ­Misérables and Phantom of the Opera.

Tickets for the concert, which will include such favourites as ­Music of the Night, Some ­Enchanted Evening and his signature song Bring Him Home, from Les Misérables, as well as definitive Irish classics such as Danny Boy and Whiskey in the Jar, go on sale today.

The concert will also feature Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and The 
Animals’ House of the Rising Sun.

Reflecting on his ­career, Colm said: “Twenty-six years ago as the original Jean Valjean I started an extraordinary journey with the Bishop of Digne setting me on the long road of reincarnation and salvation. It seems to me as I now take on the role of the Bishop that the journey has ended and I have come full circle”.

Tickets are on sale from www.edinburghplayhouse.org.uk or by calling 0844-871 3014.