Danielle Hope

Les Miserables, the biggest musical in town has a new female star, and it’s none other than our own Danielle Hope!

Danielle managed to keep the rumours pretty low key over the past few days but now the official announcement has gone out we can tell the world the great news. Eponine is  one of the central characters in the story set in 19th Century France and originally a novel by Victor Hugo.

At 19,  Danielle wasn’t even born when Les Miserables was first staged at the Barbican 26 years ago.

Danielle said:

Les Miserables is like a training ground, If you want to be in musical theatre, then you have to do Les Miserables. It’s a great way to train. I’m particularly taken by Eponine’s tale of unrequited love, which is what makes On My Own so moving. I learned a lot working opposite Michael Crawford in The Wizard Of Oz at the London Palladium.

Danielle starts rehearsals on May 14 2012 and is looking forward to being in  Les Miz during the London 2012 Olympics season.

Interestingly,  three actresses have now been chosen to play Eponine after coming from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s TV reality casting programmes. The others are Nancy Sullivan and Samantha Barks, who were in the Oliver! show I’d Do Anything, and 

Samantha Barks has now also been chosen over Taylor Swift to play Eponine in the film version of Les Miserables, which started shooting on locations in the South of France recently.