Bring Him Home! Killian Donnelly takes Les Mis to Dublin

Kilmessan singing star Killian Donnelly, who is returning to Dublin in December with the West End production of Les Miserables, will be a guest on tonight's Late Late Show.

He has been playing the lead role of Valjean in Les Mis since summer of 2017, having played almost every other role in the musical on the West End stage. 

Donnelly, a protege of St Mary's Musical Society in Navan,  is regarded as one of the hardest working actors in the West End, and has played almost every theatre in London in various shows from Roddy Doyle's 'The Commitments' to 'Memphis the Musical'.

As a youngster in 1996, he took part in a production of the musical ‘Oliver’, staged by the pupils of Kilmessan NS, as Fagin - Patrick Maguire played Oliver. 
A decade later, Killian was on stage in Dublin, with Suzanne McFadden in the Gaiety’s ‘Cinderella’ panto, and then in ‘Sweeney Todd’  at the Gate, as well as plying his trade with SMMS in Navan, writing and performing, and asking ‘Would you like fries with that?’ in a McDonalds’ advertisement.
He went over to London, where he played every character in ‘Les Miserables’, moved onto ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ as one of the three leads, then to ‘Billy Elliott’, where apparently, his ass became an internet sensation for a while, before moving to ‘The Commitments’. He also had a part in the movie version of ‘Les Miserables’.
Here’s what Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph had to say:  “The star performance comes from Killian Donnelly as The Commitments’ lead singer, Deco. He is memorably obnoxious – there is a moment that tells you all you need to know about his character when he picks his nose and disposes of his excavations on Jimmy’s duvet. But he has a superbly powerful and soulful voice, and when he tears into such classics as I Can’t Turn You Loose, Mustang Sally and perhaps the greatest of all soul songs, Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness, the shivers race down the spine.”
The soulful centre of the piece is Killian Donnelly, “who’s on sensational form here”, says Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard. As Deco, the show’s vocal lynchpin, he is part slob and part stuntman, an ego with a voice that could stop traffic yet also heal a wound.
After The Commitments, it was onto 'Memphis the Musical' with Beverly Knight, and then 'Kinky Boot's, with a transfer to Broadway, before a return to Les Mis, which opens in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin on 5th December.