Some revivals overstate their revisionism but Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical, which premiered 16 years after their 1980 hit Les Misérables, has had a radical overhaul here.

The story, set in 16th-century France, has been restructured with new lyrics by Boublil, Annabel Mutale Reed and Paul Hodge and folkier orchestrations. It has been cut down to be performed in an hour and a half without an interval, on the floor of the theatre’s returning show, A Christmas Carol. A miniature Les Mis in spirit, it is filled with the same booming melodrama and preoccupations with crime and disguise.

Based on the real-life story of a Frenchman who fled his home after getting married and returned, years later, to face claims of deception and false identity, it keeps you guessing. There are similarities with the Austrian film Rose , selected for the London film festival, and Anjet Daanje’s novel The Remembered Soldier , published in English last year.

Booming … the company of Martin Guerre.…