Random, but…

…I think the best example of the growing genre of “flash mob composed of performers from a local production of Les Mis staging ‘One Day More’ in a shopping mall” is still the first one I’ve seen, and the earliest exemplar of which I’m aware: the Polish version in Warsaw.

And there are three reasons for this.

One, the video’s early focus on crowd reactions as people notice the singers or it slowly dawns on them what’s happening.

Two, the fact that each of the players is dressed in what (once you realize what’s happening) is recognizably something their character would wear in a modern AU. They’re neither out of place in a modern shopping mall, nor out of character.

But three: the fact that they cast a big-name pop star not in the role of Marius (recognized as the male romantic lead) but Enjolras, which means that when he comes sweeping in like a storm, the response from the crowd is exactly what it should be for a young man so dynamic and charismatic that he inspires others to follow him into the jaws of hell. Enjolras’s part in the story is not small, but it’s not foregrounded. He is the fulcrum on which the entire second half of the story swings (which action creates Marius’s arc). Watching the crowd react to him, you could well believe that some of them would be tearing fixtures out of the stores to barricade one of the anchor stores if he asked them to.

I mean, the whole thing is very well staged and all the actors are charismatic and engaging, but I applaud whoever had the perspicacity to recognize that Enjolras and not Marius needs to be the one who can command a crowd with an upraised fist and voice.

See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ-9twCAjoE