Review: Miss Saigon (Touring)

Thursday 3rd December 2025 at Leeds Grand Theatre

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Miss Saigon is celebrated as a modern classic, and with a powerful story of love, resilience, survival and inevitable tragedy at its core, it certainly carries a timeless quality. Set in wartime amidst conflict that tears lovers apart, the story is a stone’s throw from Romeo and Juliet even, tapping into our keen interest in thwarted love stories. 

Concept, book and music are the work of Claude-Michel Schönberg, with book and lyrics from Alain Boublil – the result is a story of epic emotions set to an epic score with lyrics that span from functional sung dialogue to epic outpourings of emotion. And with the story relying on so much raw emotion in its leads, Julianne Pundan and Jack Kane are fantastic as the ill -fated Kim and Chris. From their first scene to their last, they’re a heartbreaking pairing and both have powerful, emotive voices which deliver on all the emotional peaks and troughs of the story. That said, the story moves at such pace that at times the connections and emotions on display feel under-developed, and that’s something that leads to the odd moment of emotional whiplash…

Emotion runs high for most characters in fact, with Ace in particular bringing a powerful, moving vocal to the production as Gigi, who captures hearts with “The Movie in My Mind”, and Mikko Juan Thuy captures thundering rage pretty palpably as the would-be husband to Kim.

There’s plenty of beauty in the music and lyrics of Miss Saigon too – from the pure, soaring sounds of “Sun and Moon” and “The Wedding Ceremony” to the heart-wrenching “I still Believe” and “I’d Give My Life for You”. But the danger and seediness surrounding Kim are also given striking musical ground through The Engineer’s numbers – most notably “The American Dream” which sees the character hurtling towards unhinged desperation in a brilliant performance from Seann Miles Moore; very much akin to Joel Grey’s MC in Cabaret with its unnerving frenetic energy (it’s definitely a show highlight).

In terms of visuals, set and costume designs from Andrew D Edwards plant us firmly in Vietnam and move us between locations sharply, often offering brutal backdrops to the action. George Reeve’s projection designs dramatically map the fall of Saigon with images of beauty and fiery destruction while Bruno Poet’s lighting favours stark, dramatic visuals of a stage awash with red each time Kim crosses paths with war and danger. It’s in the military scenes that Chrissie Cartwright and Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s choreography shines in dark glory, offering the production some of its most impactful moments with displays of sharp precision and uniformity.

While this particular production, directed by Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy, is being billed as a somewhat stripped-back take on a powerhouse musical, the epic nature of the tale and the music through which it is told, seem to defy attempts to suggest that it could be anything other than a grand scale emotional ride for audiences – if you like your musicals moving and gritty, this is one for you!

Miss Saigon is at Leeds Grand Theatre until December 13th 2025 – more information and tickets can be found here.