Phantom and Les Mis cast archives

[BVM]

Does anyone know if there is a fan site or similar that lists all the UK casts for Phantom and Les Mis from the very beginning (both London and all UK tours ideally)?

Googled it this morning but was surprised to be unable to find such a thing.

(Starlight Express and Cats both have excellent Wiki fan pages that list all casts from day 1!)

Been back at my parents house over Xmas and delving through the piles and piles of programmes I have. Annoyingly so few programmes have dates in them. Would quite like to make a spreadsheet working out dates (well, years) I saw shows. It's easier for shorter runs as I can remember when the show was on or easily google. Or things like Sunset for which I vividly remember the order of the casts! But for Les Mis and Phantom it's a nightmare!

Thanks.  

[panda]

abouttheartists.com may be of some use to you.
www.abouttheartists.com/productions/121952-les-miserables-uk-and-ireland-tour-2018-20-at-curve-theatre-and-others-2018-2020

[Dawnstar]

There used to be a website that had all the past Les Mis casts, along with more limited cast information for various other West End shows, but unfortunately it vanished several years ago.

[BVM]

Dec 29, 2023 15:23:08 GMT Dawnstar said:

There used to be a website that had all the past Les Mis casts, along with more limited cast information for various other West End shows, but unfortunately it vanished several years ago.

Yes I was sure there used to be a site for Les Mis (and indeed Phantom) which was why was surprised not to find them!

[Dawnstar]

Having managed to recall the name of the website, unfortunately all that's left of it now is a Fatal Error page. www.londonmusicalsonline.com/

[toomasj]

If there was something in particular you were looking for, I can probably help. I have every West End programme from each of those two shows.

[Alejo]

For Les Mis, the website was londonlesmis.co.uk. It then became www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis. But as Dawnstar said, it's no longer working.

But if you go to archive.org and search "http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis" on the Wayback Machine, you can see the historical archived versions of the website.

The last working version I can see is 3rd September 2018, so the website must have gone offline just after that. That should at least give you 33 years of Les Mis London casts, and the more recent ones might be easier to find.

Hopefully these links will work, to take you directly to the archived cast lists:

Principal Cast List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213235/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmprincipallist.php
Ensemble List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213230/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmensemblelist.php

[Alejo]

You can also use the Wayback Machine to search the archived versions of the official Les Mis and Phantom websites. That should give you the bios of the main actors over the years, providing they were always updated after each cast change.

I have wasted away so much time looking through these archived versions. I remember lesmis.com was launched in 1996, but the earliest archived version is Feb 1998:

web.archive.org/web/19980209012849/http://www.lesmis.com/

[BVM]

Dec 29, 2023 18:06:46 GMT Alejo said:

For Les Mis, the website was londonlesmis.co.uk. It then became www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis. But as Dawnstar said, it's no longer working.

But if you go to archive.org and search "http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis" on the Wayback Machine, you can see the historical archived versions of the website.

The last working version I can see is 3rd September 2018, so the website must have gone offline just after that. That should at least give you 33 years of Les Mis London casts, and the more recent ones might be easier to find.

Hopefully these links will work, to take you directly to the archived cast lists:

Principal Cast List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213235/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmprincipallist.php
Ensemble List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213230/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmensemblelist.php

Thanks for this - that's absolutely fantastic and exactly what I was looking for.
(Honesty had no idea you could un-archive old versions of websites!)
Anyway - those links do work and that's perfect for Les Mis. The "castlists" tab is taking me to exactly what wanted! 

[BVM]

Just need to find same thing for Phantom now - am SURE one existed somewhere!

[Alejo]

Dec 29, 2023 18:29:35 GMT BVM said:

Dec 29, 2023 18:06:46 GMT Alejo said:

For Les Mis, the website was londonlesmis.co.uk. It then became www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis. But as Dawnstar said, it's no longer working.

But if you go to archive.org and search "http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis" on the Wayback Machine, you can see the historical archived versions of the website.

The last working version I can see is 3rd September 2018, so the website must have gone offline just after that. That should at least give you 33 years of Les Mis London casts, and the more recent ones might be easier to find.

Hopefully these links will work, to take you directly to the archived cast lists:

Principal Cast List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213235/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmprincipallist.php
Ensemble List: web.archive.org/web/20180915213230/http://www.londonmusicalsonline.com/londonlesmis/lmensemblelist.php

Thanks for this - that's absolutely fantastic and exactly what I was looking for.
(Honesty had no idea you could un-archive old versions of websites!)
Anyway - those links do work and that's perfect for Les Mis. The "castlists" tab is taking me to exactly what wanted! 

Yeah, it's a fantastic tool. Unfortunately you will find a lot of broken links on these archived sites, but if you dig around, you'll find loads of great stuff.

[BVM]

Dec 29, 2023 18:36:09 GMT Alejo said:

Dec 29, 2023 18:29:35 GMT BVM said:

Thanks for this - that's absolutely fantastic and exactly what I was looking for.
(Honesty had no idea you could un-archive old versions of websites!)
Anyway - those links do work and that's perfect for Les Mis. The "castlists" tab is taking me to exactly what wanted! 

Yeah, it's a fantastic tool. Unfortunately you will find a lot of broken links on these archived sites, but if you dig around, you'll find loads of great stuff.

Yeah just having having a play around now - really interesting :-) 

[Alejo]

Dec 29, 2023 18:31:25 GMT BVM said:

Just need to find same thing for Phantom now - am SURE one existed somewhere!

I've not followed Phantom as closely, so I can't remember the names of any sites that might have once listed all the casts. But yes, I do remember seeing these at one point.

[azuraathena]

I know there used to be a site which listed all the playbills/programmes for Phantom.
I have a PowerPoints which have nearly all the Phantoms, Christines (including alternates and understudies) and Raouls for all major productions (including the tours) plus a brochure (and a lot of programmes) from the London productions history so nearly a complete collection of names.
If you are look for a particular time I might be able to help.

[danb]

Wow! That’s quite the rabbit hole I just fell down. Thank you x