Miss Saigon has everything one could wish for in a musical production – drama, emotion, tragedy, humour and a surprise shock finale. It also has a brilliant story, based on Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly and a superb set design (Andrew D. Edwards) used to bring it to life. Legendary, producer Cameron Mackintosh has managed to breathe new life into this production which is utterly spell-binding.
The plot is simple, a US soldier
falls in love with a 17 year old Vietnamese girl whilst partying in a brothel;
she is shy and new to working in the seedy dive with the other hard-nosed
prostitutes, an orphaned country girl who has turned to prostitution to survive
and he takes pity on her before pledging his love and promising to take her
back to the US.
The musical was inspired by a
photograph which book co-writer, Claude Michel Schönberg found in a magazine.
It depicted a Vietnamese mother leaving her child at a departure gate at Tan
Son Nhut Air Base to board an airplane headed for the United States where the
child’s father, an ex-GI, would be in a position to provide a much better life
for the child. Considering this mother’s actions for her child to be “The
Ultimate Sacrifice,” Schönberg developed an idea central to the plot of Miss
Saigon.
The story will tug at the
heartstrings of many as the scenario of American GI’s leaving pregnant Vietnamese
women behind during and after the Vietnamese War, must have been played out so
many times in real life. The show
portrays how in the final days of the Vietnam war, the fated love between an
American marine, Chris (Jack Kane), and an orphaned Saigon prostitute, Kim
(Julianne Pundan) are pulled all ways by The Engineer (Seann Miley More), a
pimp who longs for a visa to get him to the US.
The show set intermingles hi-tech effects and drama seamlessly and is one of the show's most impressive features with clever use of turntables, rotating rooms, staircases which glide across the stage, backdrop projections, and a levitating giant US dollar sign, all co-ordinated with the amazing songs, the stark scenes of poverty, the neon-lit landscape of Thailand, the faultless talented cast, the dancing and sublime singing.
Although none of the songs have become popular as hits, they are executed superbly and all of the cast and ensemble are to be commended. Brilliant musical theatre, not to be missed.
Dealing with adult themes,
including prostitution, sex and violence the show is not suitable for younger
audiences.
This production runs from 30th
June – 4th July 2026
See https://www.wintergardensblackpool.co.uk/events/miss-saigon/
On: 1st July 2026
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