The highly anticipated UK tour of Miss Saigon arrives at Manchester Palace Theatre, bringing with it the sweeping drama and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s unforgettable score that have captivated audiences worldwide. Directed by Jean-Pierre van der Spuy with lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil, this production promises a powerful retelling of Puccini’s tragic love story set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. With its blend of heart-wrenching emotion and soaring melodies, Miss Saigon continues to challenge and move audiences decades after its debut. 

Schönberg’s score remains the show’s beating heart, and here it’s given the kind of muscular, cinematic treatment that reminds you why Miss Saigon became a global juggernaut. Under Graham Hurman’s musical supervision, the orchestra surges, swells and occasionally roars, matching the operatic sweep of the narrative. The sound is rich yet sensitive, allowing for quieter passages- particularly Kim (Julianne Pundan)’s fragile flickers of hope- to breathe. Recurring motifs ghost through the music with precision, lending the piece a tragic inevitability. In a touring production, such orchestral heft is no small achievement. 

This revival has been billed as a rebirth, but not all reincarnations come out stronger. It’s a mostly sturdy production, though the audience doesn’t always feel entirely safe that the mighty score will be successfully handled vocally. In a sung-through musical, clarity is oxygen, and here the mix is ever so slightly off, muddying lyrics at key moments- a significant pitfall when the storytelling depends so heavily on the score’s narrative drive. Some of the staging, once fluid and relentless in its momentum, now lands with a faint clunk. Still, Bruno Poet’s lighting design works overtime, casting a literal haze over some of the creakier transitions and delivering moments of genuine theatrical brilliance. And yes, the legendary helicopter is still here. It’s undeniably watered down, an echo of the once jaw-dropping spectacle that defined the show’s salad days, yet it remains rousing enough to keep the purists at bay. 

At its core, Miss Saigon is a story of power, displacement and the human cost of war, and this production doesn’t shy away from those uncomfortable truths. The love story between Kim and Chris (Jack Kane) is tender but framed by a world collapsing in political chaos and cultural misunderstanding. Critique of Western interventionism lands sharply, and the scenes of desperation- crowds clamouring for escape, lives bartered for survival- resonate with painful immediacy. Yet the production still carries the weight of the musical’s long-debated portrayal of gender and race; this revival leans into nuance, but it continues to ask its audience to wrestle with contradictions baked into the material. 

Pundan’s Kim is the emotional anchor: superbly vulnerable, with soaring, heart-wrenching vocals that cut clean through the production’s more bombastic tendencies whilst Dominic Hartley-Harris delivers rich, sumptuous vocals as John. As the legendary Engineer, Seann Miley Moore offers a campy, high-octane performance; it’s unhinged yet super assured and delivered with such an energy that it feels purpose-built to both entertain and polarise, as the character always has.  

This production may not weigh in quite so heavily as it once did, but it still lands with considerable force. The score roars, emotion soars and it more than holds its ground against its contemporaries. There’s a reason Miss Saigon continues to stand the test of time- and if this incarnation is a means for it to remain on our stages for even longer- then it’s a sacrifice well worth making.  

Miss Saigon plays at Manchester’s Palace Theatre until Saturday 15th November, before returning for one week only between Tuesday 4th and Saturday 8th August 2026. Further information and booking details can be found here.

Tickets received in exchange for an honest review. #AD

Photography by Danny Kaan.