21 July – 1 August
Friends who had seen Miss Saigon in its original form always described it as a spectacular show that featured a startlingly realistic helicopter. There was a sense that they had been dazzled, but not necessarily moved. Produced by Michael Harrison and Cameron Mackintosh, and directed by Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy, this new iteration of Miss Saigon still offers an abundance of spectacle, but the focus is now very definitely on the tragic human story that it tells. The singing and acting are excellent throughout, both in the central roles and in the ensemble.
That story, of course, is loosely based by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg (of Les Mis fame) on Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, though here the action takes place not in Japan in 1904, but in war-torn Vietnam in the 1970s. There are also scenes set in Atlanta and Bangkok, all very effectively depicted on Andrew D Edward’s atmospheric two-tier set. There is vivid choreography too, with the robotic marching of the North Vietnamese contrasting sharply with the chaos of the final evacuation from Saigon. The gut-wrenching scramble to board the last helicopter evokes sad memories of the equally desperate attempts Afghanis made to board the final aircraft to leave Kabul in 2021. There is a poignant contemporary relevance in this tale of the USA becoming entangled in a conflict from which it cannot easily extricate itself.
Events centre upon GI Chris (Jack Kane), who meets sweetly innocent Kim (Julianne Pundan) in a sleazy joint called ‘Dreamland’, and they very quickly, perhaps too quickly, fall in love. Will Chris take Kim back to America? Chris is full of good intentions, and in Kane’s strong performance he is convincingly noble, but war-damaged.
Kim, too, sees in their passionate relationship the possibility of an escape from grim reality. Conveying Kim’s vulnerability and gentle sincerity in a deeply affecting fashion, Pundan gives an impressively confident and powerfully-voiced performance in this, her stage debut.
Mikko Juan deserves a mention too as Thuy, the Communist officer betrothed to Kim from a young age. Juan brings a degree of earnest sincerity to this otherwise unbending and unsympathetic character. Owen Johnston, stepping out last night from the ensemble to take on the role of Chris’s soldier buddy John was equally impressive, transitioning from careless hell-raiser to head of a charitable organisation dealing with children of mixed American-Vietnamese parentage, left behind in 1975.
With Chris and John both seen to be fundamentally admirable men, there is perhaps a danger of whitewashing America’s part in the conflict, but elsewhere Alain Boublil’s hard-hitting text does not shirk from the sordid aspects of the Vietnam War. There is romance, there is heroism, but there is also hard-bitten cynicism, exemplified in The Engineer, owner of ‘Dreamland’, and owner too of a shameless desire to look after number one, and to hell with everyone else. In a performance of shape-shifting brilliance, Aaron Teoh, (alternating with Seann Miley Moore), depicts The Engineer’s slippery chameleon character with an infectious glee that makes him both repugnant and irresistible at the same time.
The songs in Miss Saigon tend to be of the soaring, power-ballad kind, with yearning crescendo piled upon yearning crescendo. They have their devoted fans, but others may find them rather predictable and hard to distinguish one from the other. Not so The Engineer’s brilliant final number, The American Dream. Staged with Busby Berkeley-like razzle-dazzle, it is an outrageously scatological hymn to the vulgar pursuit of wealth, culminating in The Engineer descending triumphantly on a huge, brashly illuminated dollar sign. A true show-stopper.
After all the sound and fury, matters end more sombrely, with a quieter scene that centres on motherhood, and the profound sacrifices that motherhood can entail in time of war. It brings Miss Saigon to its devastatingly moving conclusion.
★★★★☆ Mike Whitton, 23 July 2026
Photography credit: Danny Kaan
