Miss Saigon – Alhambra Theatre, Bradford

Music: Claude-Michael Schönberg

Lyrics: Richard Maltby, Jr and Alain Boublil

Director: Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy

Does it take conflict to inspire great passion? Is there a well-known romance that is not born out of terrible strife? The canon of musical theatre is rife with stories of great love and great loss, people rent apart by war or by warring families and yet the appetite for feeling of this intensity is somehow irresistible – never more so than with Miss Saigon.

Hidden behind the thinnest veil of gauze, onto which is projected images of paddy fields, slow boats and women in cool elegant tunics, is the heat and ferocity of the most brutal of modern wars in Vietnam. As the curtain rises, so too does the temperature as the action plunges immediately into a seedy bar in Saigon where the ‘Engineer’  – (Seann Miley Moore) is showing off his girls to the ravenous American GIs.

A massive assault on the senses, simultaneously entrancing and repelling, the girls strut and gyrate to the delight of the soldiers whilst the Engineer collects the fees. Uncomfortable watching for sure – and perhaps the element which has roused some understandably woke sensitivities of late – but important too not to pretend that this didn’t happen.

Kim is an innocent, recently arrived in town having fled an unwanted marriage forced upon her by her parents – now killed in the war. With nowhere else to turn, she is quickly welcomed into the bar as the most desirable and valuable new acquisition.

From the beginning and throughout Julianne Pundan plays Kim with a tenderness and strength which totally befits this epic role. Paired with GI Chris (Jack Kane), outwardly a more reluctant participant in the activities of the brothel, he finds in Kim an innocence and charm which is immediately enchanting. The first scenes between them are something akin to Romeo and Juliet, as they find their way with each other with an obvious chemistry and the slightly stuttering moments, in the carefully choreographed love scene, in fact add to their youthful naivety.

After all too short a time together, the lovers are separated by the tragedy of war. No time to explain or say goodbye, their paths are destined never to cross again but for the fact that this was indeed love and so they carry that desperate longing with them.

Director Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy’s huge production is entirely worthy of Cameron Mackintosh’s famous West End predecessors. Set and costumes designed by Andrew D Edwards and lighting by Bruno Poet seems vast, with stair cases providing flexible levels, a revolve which contains Kim’s modest room and cages which can be bars or spaces to display the female goods. Dark spaces – both of the backstreets of Saigon, Ho Chi Minh or Bangkok and also of the mind – are illuminated by neon signs, great rays of white mist and the densest blood red glare.

Offsetting the central love story are those of the struggling veterans as they attempt to restore their war-torn lives and forge new relationships. Chris’ new wife, Ellen (Emily Langham), has witnessed his nightmares and heard him as he’s shouted Kim’s name. When she sings Maybe towards the end of the second act, it is a truly heart wrenching moment.

The other side of the story deals with those Vietnamese whose lives have been destroyed by war and now want to escape to live a better life in the promised land that has been dangled before them. The Engineer’s massive and lascivious rendition of American Dream is a brilliantly choreographed number which Moore revels in and knocks clean out of the park – a show stopping moment.

It is no wonder that this show continues to draw huge and very appreciative audiences. The sonorous rumbling vibrations of the helicopter, which rattled the theatre was only matched by the noise of the ovation.

Runs until 9th May 2026, before continuing on tour