A four-centuries-old imposture trial becomes a semi-staged new musical from the writers of Les Misérables, played in the round at The Old Vic.
Matthew Warchus revives Martin Guerre, by the writers of Les Misérables, semi-staged at The Old Vic in Waterloo from Thursday 1 to Saturday 31 October 2026.
In 1548 a Basque peasant named Martin Guerre walked out of the village of Artigat and did not come back. Eight years later a man arrived claiming to be him, and the wife and most of the village accepted him.
He lived as Martin Guerre for three years before a property dispute put him on trial. The court was close to acquitting him when the real Martin Guerre appeared on a wooden leg. The impostor, Arnaud du Tilh, was hanged.
The trial judge wrote the case up in 1560, and it has been retold ever since, by the historian Natalie Zemon Davis among others. It also produced a film with Gérard Depardieu and an American remake.
Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg made a musical of it in 1996. It won an Olivier, and they have rewritten it for thirty years.
This version carries new music, new lyrics and folk-inflected orchestrations, played in the round. It is a try-out before the production that tours.