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Cameron Mackintosh’s bombastic Vietnam musical Miss Saigon was one of the last of the proper blockbuster ’80s musicals, running at the massive Theatre Drury Lane for a decade, a genuinely unthinkable feat today.
Nicholas Hytner’s original production closed in 1999. But it turned out not to be the last chopper out of Saigon, as a tweaked version descended upon the Prince Edward Theatre in 2014 and stayed there for a couple of years. It also went some way to addressing the controversies around the show, which even in ‘a different era’ had received criticism for casting white actors with makeup and eye prosthetics in the leading role of half-Vietnamese/half-French hustler The Engineer. This was addressed in the 2014 casting (when Philippine-American actor Jon Jon Briones played the role). And while the musical – by Les Mis duo Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil – will probably never beat the rap that its tragic Vietnamese women are a bit of an orientalist cliche, it’s definitely moved out of cancellation territory. Plus the Vietnam War-set reimagining of the classic Madama Butterfly is a proper old school visual spectacular and the songs aren’t half bad either.
And in 2027 we’ll be able to see it again, as Miss Saigon returns to the Prince Edward for what is being billed as a ‘strictly limited’ season of eight months only from next May.
Theatre nerds may recall that Miss Saigon received its first truly new UK revival at the Sheffield Crucible a couple of years back but this is not what this is, being rather a freshly tweaked touring version of the original production. It’s nominally directed by Jean-Pierre van der Spuy, but you can rest assured that you’re basically getting the original version, albeit with the ickier stuff cut out – casting is TBC, but you can be fairly confident lessons have been learned.
Sign up here to find out when Miss Saigon tickets go on sale.
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Plus: the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has announced its summer 2026 season.
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