Miss Saigon - Theatre Royal / Prince Edward / UK Tour

I'm glad Alistair is playing Chris on Broadway. He was brooding and intense in the West End production, did well with the part. I liked his vocals too.

What? To play an American GI? Why on earth? 🙄

He might have been brooding in the West End but all i can think of now is his awful performance on Casualty

Yes, Supergirl is filmed in LA and Vancouver. www.imdb.com/title/tt4016454/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt

Surprised that the strongest cast member isn't reprising his role on Broadway and that is Kwang-Ho-Hong.

I bet he doesn't put that on his CV!

I suppose it's great for marketing too. They can use everything from the poster to the clips from the filmed version as promotion for the Broadway version now. That poster of him and Eva is shown all over the world at the moment.

I just came home from the cinema screening. Miss Saigon is my favorite show and I have been waiting for this filmed version for a long time. I have seen the original version in London, as well as the revival 3 times and productions in other countries.

WOW. What an experience it was. I absolutely loved it. First of all, this completely destroys all the ideas people had about the Les Miserables film, that legit singing would not work on film, or screen and that it should be separated from acting, and more of that nonsense. It works. And it works extremely well. Basically the setup was exactly the same. Live singing in 1 take, on a set (stage set and filmstage set). Filmed with close-ups. And yet, this Miss Saigon feels much more filmic. Why? Because it actually combines singing and acting instead of separating it which makes it more natural, the singing actually makes sense if done well, it elevates the acting and the artform instead of getting in the way of it, and because of the filmic editing.

The screening was sold out and at many times you could hear a pin drop in the audience. It felt like a real film. In the interval as well at the end I saw many people crying.

I immediately noticed the differences in shots. It seems that only 25% was from the actual 25th performance, and 75% was recorded separately later on. I'm not sure when they recorded this. I know they did some shooting days at the end of the run, and they definitely did completely new takes of songs, many of the audio was very different from the radio broadcast of the 25th show, which was a good thing. But there were also some shots of Thuy that looked as if there was a camera on stage following him, which could not be done during the 25th show. So maybe they filmed a show/run through like that around the time of the 25th gala too and only did some extra close-ups during the final days of the run? It must be a combination of that.

I noticed that for example the whole scene "I'd give my life for you" was much better than the 25th radio broadcast. In "you will not touch him" filmed on or around the 25th anniversary show, Tam was clearly visible. So I noticed that in "I'd give my life for you" clearly recorded a year later, they had another boy playing Tam, and his face is completely hidden from the camera in the whole scene. At the end credits there were also 2 boys listed as Tam.

I was bit disappointed that the 2 scenes where Eva sang the wrong melody were kept in (He's been waiting for his father, for a long, long while and Paper dragons), but in both scenes Tam's face was clearly visible so they could not re-record them.

There were many highlights for me, I loved the clips of explosions at the beginning, the movie in my mind, the scenes of Kim and Thuy were heartbreaking, very beautiful, the nightmare, the hotelroom, Chris' breakdown.

The cast did very well, but there were differences in performance quality. I noticed that on film, it is about detailed acting, but also detailed singing. We see and hear everything, so the importance of a good note (know what to hold longer and know what to keep short to keep it natural, which Hugh Jackman completely sucked at) should not be underestimated. Notes are actors too. The cast did this amazingly well, like they really understand this artform. There were notes that felt so natural, they really took me on a journey. The journey in the character's minds and that is what this artform is about. Everything made sense. There was no moment when I asked myself why they were singing because it felt so natural.

Now, there were a few occasions where this could have been even better. I felt that the guy playing John was not nuanced enough at times. And there were many moments where Alistair Brammer was absolutely brilliant (breakdown) but also a few moments where he pulled a hugh jackman, for example after bui doi when he asks john to tell him about Kim, there is a low note he holds for 5 seconds which I did not understand. That was one of the few moments that took me out of it.

I loved Jon Jon and Eva, they both have some fantastic moments. But I have seen Tanya as Kim in London too, and there were certain moments in her acting (beginning and Too much for one heart) where Tanya actually made me cry with her acting and I felt Eva was a bit bland there. I missed the "burst of joy" at times, the sincere happiness. And just little acting nuances that I missed here and there.

Kwan Ho hong impressed me very much, he was just perfect, and Tamsin Carroll really surprised me, she worked really well on film.

I loved the way the ensemble sounded in the chorus parts such as "This is the hour".

I'm glad I got to experience this wonderful night and I immediately ordered the Blu ray. What a great document to have.

Overall, I loved it in the theatre but I might love it even a bit more on screen because of the extra nuances.

Now, I think they should still do an actual Hollywood movie version of it, but maybe with a different cast and approach. More special effects, locations, parts of songs as a voice over, elaborate cinematography and maybe with people who are even more natural at the combining of singing and acting, such as Jeremy Jordan and Tanya Manalang.

Yes, I got an email today informing that my copies (I order two; one for me and one for a Christmas gift) are being delivered to my local Amazon locker tomorrow.

Emailed my DVD coming today.

Watching it now

Just bought the DVD. I was at the 25th Anniversary Gala so looking forward to reliving that special finale again, but from what everyone has said about the extreme (effective) use of close ups, I don't think that much of the actual show I saw that night made it into the final cut!