My family is definitely a theatre-loving family. For as long as I can remember, birthdays have been an opportunity to all traipse off to the West End and many weekends have been spent spontaneously visiting the stands around Leicester Square to pick up last minute discounted tickets for a show that night.
So, last month, it made perfect sense for us to go and see the wonderful Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre (followed by dinner up The Shard at the yummy Ting).
Before taking our seats in the circle, we enjoyed a drink outside in the balcony bar and I scanned the programme, taking in as much information about the cast as possible – where they’d trained, whether I’d seen them in anything before etc. It’s compulsory for me to buy a programme for EVERY show I see.
The show, which has been revived for this new run, really took my breath way. I was in tears right at the beginning of the first act when hearing the song Movie in My Mind.
Eva Noblezada was simply enchanting as Kim. Her voice is so pure and comes across as effortlessly perfect. One can’t help but feel protective towards her as she appears so small and vulnerable on stage, yet so powerful with her performance. I was shocked to read that this is her West End debut and she only recently left high school. Wow, that girl can sing!
For me, the other stand-out performance came from Jon Jon Briones as The Engineer. He provided a necessary touch of light-hearted humour to the serious show and was great fun to watch. His song in Act 2, The American Dream, was utterly bedazzling.
This musical is undeniably Kim’s show, but I was impressed by Tamsin Carrol’s portrayal of Ellen. This really is an understated part and, in my opinion, could be fleshed out a little more. However, Tamsin poured so much emotion in to her solo, Maybe, and left me sympathising with her situation rather than only with Kim.
Overall, I fell in love with the show. I even bought the soundtrack CD. My only real issue was that I sometimes lost some of the words. The Engineer’s accent meant I occasionally had to strain my ears to catch all of his jokes. I also had to be content with only hearing every other word in some of the chorus songs, such as The Heat is on in Saigon. I’m not sure whether this was down to the acoustics of the theatre, the microphones or the performers.
The show is definitely up there in my top three musicals. It sits very closely behind Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. It’s a must-see.
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