Festival Theatre, Edinburgh – until 17 Feb 2018
Then touring
Guest reviewer: Martin Gray
Miss Saigon, a musical tale of love, longing, and sacrifice, lands at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre as part of its ongoing tour.
It’s safe to say that if you like Les Misérables, also presented by Cameron Mackintosh, you’ll like this too – some of the more familiar songs could probably be slipped into Les Mis, changing only names and dates; there’s the big romance that seems doomed – even a massive prop to rival the Parisian barricade.
It’s not a case of deja vu, though, as Miss Saigon is its own creature and a magnificent one at that. You will be carried along by such lovely numbers as the poignant Movie in My Mind, the angsty Why God Why? and the gorgeous Last Night of the World.
It’s not all ballads, mind – there are upbeat numbers such as the scene-setting The Heat is On in Saigon and wildly cynical carnivalesque nightmare of The American Dream.
Then there’s the chilling military march The Morning of the Dragon, in which the show really wears its budget on its sleeves – dozens of performers marching, flipping, dancing in a procession of costumes and masks under a massive head of Ho Chi Minh.
Find fault with the performances? Good luck with that one. Sooha Kim is sweet voiced and sincere as Kim, her love for Chris staying just the right side of obsession. She’s quite heartbreaking, and well matched to Ashley Gilmour’s Chris – the characters can’t keep their hands off one another, kissing even between song lines, and the actors make the chemistry convincing.
terrific tonsils
Gilmour has terrific tonsils, as soulful as they’re strong, and he never coasts into simply singing and dancing from one number to the rest – he’s feeling those emotions, selling them to the audience.
The Miss Saigon company. Pic: Johan Persson
Red Concepción getting the final bow was a surprise, though he is rather brilliant as that opportunist spider of a man, The Engineer, his powerful pipes always serving the story. And while she’s only in a few scenes, Zoé Doano cements herself into the show brilliantly as Ellen, the woman Chris weds when he’s back in the US after the Fall of Saigon; her duet with Kim, I Still Believe, is a real tearjerker.
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Gerald Santos as Thuy, who believes Kim rightfully his, has a lovely tone, making him hard to dislike, but he plays the villain to the hilt of his rather scary dagger. Ryan O’Gorman, as Chris’s army buddy John, jerks a few tears with a powerful version of Bui Doi, as images of real Amerasian children left behind after the US troops vanished flash behind him.
The leads are backed by an energetic ensemble of GIs, bargirls, peasants and communists, enriching the bigger numbers and acting their socks off – and in one case, a studded thong.
This touring production, sharply directed by Laurence Connor, is enchanting from beginning to end, with James McKeon’s precise musical direction of his first-rate orchestra a real asset.
With Miss Saigon, Edinburgh has its first must-see show of the year. It’s a cheesy old line but it bears repeating – Don’t Miss Saigon.
