A Night With Miss Saigon

25th Anniversary Performance Of West End Musical Miss Saigon

 

 

Last night I went out with a group of friends who, like me are mostly regular swimmers at the swimming pools in Littlehampton and Worthing. I had booked seats for us all in the back row of the tiny Windmill Cinema on the sea front. We had all been looking forward to the evening out together. We were there to see the 25^th anniversary on Miss Saigon showing from the West End, filmed in one take and shown in cinemas all over the country.

 

 

 My husband Steve and I had first seen Miss Saigon during the opening week in London all those years ago. At the time we thought it was the best musical we had ever seen and cried our silly, softy eyes out at both the sadness of the Madam Butterfly type story and the beauty of the music. Then we went up to town again a couple of years ago to see the new young cast in the West End revival. Here are original stars, Lea Selonga who created the part of Kim with her GI Chris played by Simon Bowman.

 

 

 

 

 

Last night the little local picture house was absolutely packed out with a SOLD OUT notice at the box office. There were six of us in our party and I had booked the tickets months back when I first heard it was to be shown. In addition to the whole show being shown, complete with an interval there was to be an anniversary finale and I think that took almost another hour and included some of the original cast that Steve and I had seen in the show twenty five years ago.

 

 

 The special Anniversary finale was well worth the price of the tickets and making the visit for on its own. Lea Salonga sang one if the songs with the new young ‘Chris; GI character played by Alistair Brammer who looked like he loved having that chance to hold her in his arms, as did the original Chris, Simon Bowman sing beautifully with the young Kim, Eva Noblezada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The part of The Engineer has, since the revival, been played brilliantly sleazily by Jon-Jon Briones. Jonathan Pryce who played that part originally was so good as the Saigon pimp, and took part if this one off special with aplomb and an elegant nonchalance plus a charming amount of humour about his old age, saying that although he was wearing his original shoes from the show, that the jacket was new because the first one was in the V & A theatrical exhibition. There are many more Asian actors in the latest production and quite rightly too, I remember that when it opened the question was raised as to why an Asian actor had not been cast in that part. The finale also brought the writers Alain Bloublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg who was the composer, to say a few words, as well as producer Cameron Mackintosh to complete the evening.

 

 

Our little group turned the evening into a special occasion with a smuggled in bottle of Prosecco and glasses and I brought Steve’s Salted Chocolate tart already sliced which I served, (expecting to get thrown out at any time) on tiny bone china plates with silver spoons and serviettes for my friends to enjoy. It also made sure that I did not eat any more of the yummy cake since I am on a five day per week diet. 

Steve at the last moment was not able to come with us because he was called away to work to avoid upsetting a regular client. The spare ticket allowed my friend Michelle to bring her mother Carol who loved the show as did we all.

 

The show is as most people already know loosely based on Puccini’s opera Madam Butterfly. This version showed a war torn Saigon with one night of love drowned in the misery and evil of that terrible time.