Miss Saigon - Theatre Royal / Prince Edward / UK Tour

Seen this on Tuesday evening. Had tickets for the back of the upper circle but was moved to the front of the circle, as they closed the upper circle. I didn't notice too many changes to the production but thought it was a very good touring production. My friend who hadn't seen the show looked over at me in shock after Kim's nightmare.

Overall the cast were very good:

Sooha was very good as Kim, however her accent is quite thick and her voice is not as powerful as Eva's. I sometimes felt she had no connection with the lyrics she was singing as she did sound a bit emotionless at times, but she was still very good.

Ashley was probably the best Chris out of the three I have seen.

After reading a few comments on here about Zoe, I was expecting to be disappointed with her performance but I thought she was a much better Ellen than Tamsin or Carolyn.

I much preferred Red as the Engineer over Jon Jon. That said, the Engineer is not my favourite character, but overall I felt Red gave a more rounded performance.

Gerald Santos was fine as Thuy, a little wooden but he did the job.

Ryan O'Gorman was a very good John. Really enjoyed his performance. It was nice hearing Bui Doi without all those crazy riffs.

Na Young Jeon was quite good as Gigi, although her voice cracked slightly in the movie in my mind.

I also saw Miss Saigon in Cardiff, on Monday 4th December, the house was just about full from what I could see in the stalls (admittedly I couldn't see the upper circle) .
I thoroughly enjoyed the production , as spectacular and slick as the original production which I saw in 1989 . The helicopter scene is, if anything, more dramatic than the original , very well done.
I agree with steve10086 the sound was very harsh at times, especially at the beginning , and most of the words were unintelligible, but it improved later on . I thought the opening was a bit frenetic too, it was hard to tell what was going on (especially since the sound wasn’t great.
The performances were great though , especially Kim who was wonderful, and Chris, the engineer on the night I saw it was the “alternative” who had a tendency to over act and again wasn’t very intelligible most of the time .
I think the Wales Millenium Centre is one of my favourite theatres, it’s a beautiful building inside and out and looks like it was just built yesterday. The auditorium is stunning with its wood and (I think slate) frontages to the balconies and boxes , the exterior is attractive and imaginative, and the foyers, bars and catering areas are spacious and clean , and I found the staff all round were friendly and polite .

I second all of the above. The WMC is a fantastic theatre! Did have quite bad legroom on Saturday though, which surprised me as it’s always been great before.

The problem with The Heat Is On - as with London - is the very loud shouting from the marines and the smacking of the steel chairs which makes a lot of the girl's solo lines hard to make out.

Centre of Row C in the Lower Stalls, which is actually the last row of the front block of seats, before the wide aisle that runs across the stalls area. I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by the legroom as WMC, so hadn’t expected it.

Does anyone know if its still Thursdays and Saturday matinees that the alternate Kim is on ? I did search for it on this thread but just in case the schedule has changed since. I am going this Sunday afternoon so was wondering if it will be Sooha or Joreen (or even the understudy).

Thanks Daniel, I assume it will be Sooha then but you never know

I'm back on this thread and I'm now wondering what Kim you saw ? It was Sooha on for the Sunday matinee but we had the alternate engineer on, he was excellent. 

I am hearing incredible things about this production. Everyone I hear about it is raving.

In a Facebook post I read that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited the show this week. Does anyone know who were on in the leading roles that night?

I have seen this production a few times now while it's been in Edinburgh (don't judge, I love Miss Saigon) and it's just Spectacular! There's not a weak link to be found anywhere in the cast and everything is just so tight it's a marvel to watch.

Na-Young Jeon was amazing as Gigi, her acting was incredible and really made feel for her character. I really love her voice as well. Gerald Santos was really good as Thuy as well portraying the character sympathetically rather than the 1 dimensional villain that can so easily happen with Thuy.

Zoë Doano really impressed me as Ellen. She is given a lot more to work with here as Ellen then she had with Cosette and it really showed in her acting. She had me in tears during "Maybe" (I still wish it was the old song instead but that's another story).

Ryan O'Gorman's John was absolutely outstanding. Out of the 4 actors I've seen play John live (the other 3 being over the 4 times I saw the revival in London) Ryan is by far my favourite showing really strong character growth between the start of the show and the end. His voice is amazing too! I'd love to see him play Judas one day if he has the vocal range.

Ashley Gilmour is great as well and very believable as Chris and has great chemistry with both Sooha and Joreen as Kim.

I really enjoyed Red Concepción's Engineer as well offering very different take on the character than Jon Jon Briones. He doesn't play the character as dark as Jon Jon and has a much lighter comedic feel overall but out of nowhere at points he'll suddenly turn on a dime and become very menacing indeed. I found this approach very interesting and he certainly feels like a much more unstable Engineer than I've ever seen before.

Sooha Kim was phenomenal as Kim. Her Kim had this real air of innocence about her which made her sad moments in the show even more heartbreaking. Her voice has this wonderful crystal clear tone to it which I thought was just beautiful yet when required she was also able to put some power behind it, very impressed with her voice!

I also saw Joreen Bautista as the alternate Kim. she was brilliant as well. Her voice maybe wasn't quite as strong as Sooha's but was still very good. She acted the part amazingly well though and quite differently from Sooha. The fact that she's tiny and actually being 17 years old (I would say she looks slightly younger than that) really helps to sell how young and vulnerable Kim is early on in the show. For a 17 year old I was immensely impressed.

Set wise from memory of London apart from not having poles for the two side dancers in "What a Waste", I saw no difference at all which is really impressive to me as I had assumed that they would have had to make some compromises in order to tour it. The lighting really stood out to me as well. it's just gorgeous.

I also really like that they've changed the wedding song to actually include Vietnamese lyrics instead of the gibberish that they had in there before. That was one of my major gripes with the show that had no defence really, it was just a bad idea and they should never have done it. I realise that although I don't know what the new words mean, they probably aren't "what all the girls sing at weddings" but it's a step in the right direction. I think if the movie does get made they should rewrite that section to include something that would actually happen at a Vietnamese wedding, or if they really want to include that song make it 100% clear that it has nothing whatsoever to do with a wedding and is just everyone playing around or something. That is only if it does indeed have nothing to do with Vietnamese weddings, having no knowledge of Vietnamese wedding ceremonies, for all I know it could be accurate. if it is, then by all means keep it in in there. I suspect however that like the former gobbledegook lyrics used in the song it probably is nothing like what actually goes on at a Vietnamese wedding and is just lazy writing. I've gone majorly off topic now though. ramble over. Back to the production itself.

Worth a special mention as well is Thao Nguyen in the ensemble. Last time I saw the show during "The Movie in My Mind" I was just about holding it together, having already seen the show twice over the prevous two weeks at that point. Then I decided to look over in her direction and saw her absolutely balling her eyes out with tears streaming down her face. Well it was then at that moment that my brain decided for some reason it was a good idea to copy her. I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the song! I'm just glad it was dark so hopefully no one saw me.

Overall it's an absolutely stunning production and I feel like I pick up new things each time I watch it. Bring on the 2 show day on Saturday and I feel like a trip down to Manchester might be in order!

I think Friday 9th or saturday 10th, it was on the FB page of certain cast members.