Theatre 2015: Review One

Miss Saigon, Prince Edward's Theatre, London. January 2015.

Start as you mean to go on I say, and did as my first trip to the theatre in 2015 took place just three days in and involved my husband, mum and dad!

Our Christmas present to each other this past Christmas was tickets to see the revival of Miss Saigon, I'd seen it on tour a few years back. mum and dad had seen the original (with the original cast) and Mr Norfolkbookworm hadn't seen it but was convinced enough by the rest of us that he'd enjoy it.

The story is a reworking of the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly, set during and after the Vietnam War and is a full throttle musical spectacle from curtain up.  It is not for the faint hearted or prudish as some of each act is set in a brothel but it is breath taking and overwhelming in just the right way.

Thanks to my studies into the theatre there were very clever bits of staging and use of lighting that I noticed but that obviously worked as none of my family mentioned them for good or bad afterwards, but I do think that I have been conditioned a little by so many plays at the Globe.  This is a sad story and ends abruptly in someways and I did expect the cast to get up and either dance a jig or sing a final chorus which didn't happen!

A great way to start the New Year of theatre going off and I am pleased that we managed to get good, reasonable seats for this, Mr Norfolkbookworm and I won't be planning another trip to the show but we certainly did enjoy it and came out of the theatre with a real ear-worm which is just what you want from a piece of musical theatre!

Picture of Kim and Chris taken from the Telegraph Review.

We were lucky that we'd decided to see this and not Les Miserables as our treat for on the day we saw the show there was a small fire at Les Mis and the performance was stopped after just 20 minutes!