There’s nothing quite like the spectacle of an entire audience simultaneously bursting into tears. The sensitive Classics student three seats down sobbing into a hanky, the Blue sat next to me shedding a manly tear into a rugby shirt and my own personal ‘strangled cat’ impersonation.

This tearjerked reaction to watching Les Miserables has raised the question of whether musical films ultimately improve on the stage versions, and the films are certainly adept at pulling on the heartstrings; my mother has only to hear the first few bars of ‘Edelweiss’ from The Sound of Music to demand a recuperative glass of wine (“they were SO brave!”). Film adaptations of stage musicals often push the imagination that little bit further than a stage can possibly do - just look at the gothic spectacle of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd; grimy London is realised far more lavishly than even the largest of West End props budgets could ever allow. Surely in the film of Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey II, the alien plant with a taste for flesh, is believably animated in a way that a puppet on stage could never be (although I’ll admit that ‘believable’ isn’t my main criteria when judging huge carnivorous plants).

Yet inevitably with a film a sense of removal from the events is apparent, but when watching the gun being fired at the end of Blood Brothers, meters from your seat by the tortured Micky, even the hardest of hearts concludes the musical will always be better on stage. Try and sit through Les Miserables on stage without sharing in the actors’ emotions. The vocal performances are unique every time, and stars are chosen not just on their Hollywood A-list status: yes, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne were fine as musical leads, but go and listen to Colm Wilkinson and Michael Ball sing those roles, and see if the difference doesn’t astound you.

Acting cannot make up for mediocre vocal quality, as poor Russell proved with his monotonic rendition of ‘Stars’. Although the screen will always be able to rustle up the more convincing sets and costumes, there’s a certain glee to be found in seeing the man portraying Edna Turnblad in Hairspray burst onto stage in a sequined outfit with complete pride. It is also easy to forget how restricting a musical film can be, with little room for artistic creativity as a world as close to the script as possible is painstakingly created. Take Sondheim’s surreal Into the Woods - on screen, the giant in the musical would be expected to be present and correct, whereas on stage use of shadows and sound effects can provide a subtler and ultimately more satisfying monster (using the time-honoured maxim that imagination will always be more powerful than any visual creation). 

Though the musical film can be extremely powerful, as observed by the hoards of teary-eyed Les Miserables watchers, the musical will always be home when the boards are trodden and applause for Evita is not just a sound effect.