COLLEGE AND LES MIS BREAKTHROUGH

College + Les Mis Breakthrough

It’s 1991 and I am 21 years old. I’m at college studying performing arts, and it felt like something had clicked back into place.

There was a seriousness to it that I needed. You had to turn up. You had to be ready. No one carried you. If you hadn’t warmed up, it showed. If you hadn’t prepared, it showed. You were exposed in the room in a way that forced you to grow up quickly.

I loved that.

For the first time in years, I felt like I was building something properly. Not dabbling. Not hoping. Building. Every class felt like another brick laid in the direction I had always wanted to go.

And I recognised myself again.

The version of me who had been obsessed with musical theatre, who could lose hours listening to cast albums, who wanted to talk about roles and staging and harmonies without stopping — he was fully back. There was no split focus. No distraction. I was immersed.

Then someone mentioned an open audition in Glasgow for Les Misérables.

We decided to go.

I didn’t dress it up as destiny. It was an audition. A chance to stand in a professional room and see if I measured up.

It was a different atmosphere entirely. Proper panel. Proper process. No familiar faces.

I got through.

Then I got the offer — the first National Tour.

I remember the shift more than the moment. One week I was a student, still in training. The next I was stepping into the profession I had aimed for since I was a teenager.

It didn’t feel theatrical. It felt earned.

College had done what it needed to do and I am eternally grateful for that.

And I walked straight out of it and into musical theatre.

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