Miss Saigon: High-powered Production

Dramatic events of 30-odd years ago are given the big budget stage treatment in this gritty musical drama.  From the creators of Les Mis, Miss Saigonrevisits a number of similar themes.  Opening in the final days of the Vietnam War, it's a little bit Madame Butterfly, but the parallels with Alain Boublil and Claude Michel-Schonberg's earlier 1980 smash are easy to spot.

Instead of Valjean, there's Kim, a 17 year old orphan picked off the streets to work in the seedy Dreamland bar run by The Engineer, a grafting opportunist in the Thenardier mould.  Stalking Kim is her cousin Thuy, the man she has been betroth, and who is as relentless and as obsessed as Inspector Javert.  Having fallen for Chris, a young American marine, Kim gets left behind in the panic when Saigon suddenly falls to the North Vietnamese.  Chris doesn't know it, but Kim is carrying his child.

Back Stateside, the depressed Chris is nursed back to sanity and marries Ellen - a situation redolent of the Marius, Cossette and Eponine love triangle from Les Mis.  there is even the equivalent of 'I Dreamed a Dream' in the songs 'The Movie in my Mind' and 'The American Dream', while the Saigon prostitues mirror the dispossessed of the Parisian slums.  Crowd scenes featuring the company are superbly co-ordinated, especially the evocative Red Flag dance, and the mad scramble surrounding the last American helo out of Saigon.

Spectacular sets, stunning sound and lighting effects, striking costumes and set pieces, and grand orchestration from Barry Jones' well honed 21 piece ensemble heighten its epic scale.

And there is not a weak performance.  For all her considerable experience in the role, Melinda Chua plays Kim as if she is revealing the character for the very first time.  Possessing a powerfu the diminutive performer perfectly captures the sensitivity, as well as the anguish and passionate desperation, of surviving love and loss, with eloquence and freshness.

The calous Engineer is plugged into the "dark side" by Scott Andrew.  It's not a subtle portrayal -doggedly conniving, insensitive and grimly effective, despite some words being difficult to hear in the first act.  Young Bradford Meurk as Chris continues to grow in stature as a performer, playing alongside the most impressive Kyle Chuen as the unrelenting Thuy, and Chris Crowe as army buddy, John.  Opening the second act, Crowe's pinstriped presence was practically Presidential.  As Ellen, Amy Hunt reveals a tremendous set of pipes, making the most of her limited stage time.

The multi-layered Miss Saigon is a huge undertaking with its historical flashbacks, dream sequence, and its cultural, political, physical and psychological conflicts.  Well paced, this high-energy production is a towering achievement that you really should experience for yourself.