Boublil & Schönberg’s Miss Saigon in one of the jewels in super-producer Cameron Mackintosh’s crown – second only to the French duo’s Les Miserables, perhaps – and every so often he gives the ol’ chopper a polish and flies back to Saigon for a fresh West End run for the Vietnam War-set musical. Although rendered sowewhat unfashionable by the still festering controvesy over the casting of the white actor Jonathan Pryce as the original incarnation of half-Vietnamese hustler The Engineer, it remains a monumental and spectacular work of theatre. Adapted from Puccinni’s Madama Butterfly, its tale of doomed love offers big songs, big feelings, and big setpieces.
Although this is nominally a completely different production to the original Nicholas Hytner one, Mackintosh’s ‘revivals’ rarely deviate too far from the spirit of what made the show a big hit in the first place – don’t go expecting director Jean-Pierre van der Spuy to reinvent the wheel here (though we can take a lack of yellowface as a given, fortunately).
