Miss Saigon Reviews – Sheffield Theatres

"Who needs a helicopter, this is a hit"

"... the great virtue of this pared-back yet electrifying revival from Robert Hastie and Anthony Lau — directing the first nonreplica regional production — is that it ought to win over people who, like me, have always thought the original show, helicopter and all, was the embodiment of the mega-musical at its gaudiest."

"There are some things you can’t entirely fix, of course: the melodies and lyrics sometimes land with such a dull thud that you might be listening to a concept album by T’Pau. But Chris Poon, the musical director, oversees lean orchestrations, while the shlock-free staging brings the story’s emotions into sharper focus."

"... Joanna Ampil (no stranger to the role of the ill-starred ingenue Kim) gives such an assured display that any doubts soon dissolve. A character once played by Jonathan Pryce in yellowface now becomes an even more morally ambiguous presence. Ampil’s vocals are majestic"

"Jessica Lee’s Kim, the Engineer’s latest acquisition, is assertive and three-dimensional."

"Respectfully revised, and as emotionally searing as ever"

"This restaging of Boublil and Schönberg’s take on Madama Butterfly makes necessary changes, without compromising the dramatic heft one bit"

"... this production has a substantial and creatively engaged cohort of British East and Southeast Asian actors, with the role of Engineer taken by Joanna Ampil. The racial dynamic between the lovers has also changed, and Chris, who fathers a child with Kim, is here an African-American marine (Christian Maynard giving a touchingly vulnerable and measured performance)."

"As for ensuring that the show is less vulnerable to charges of demeaning stereotyping, revisionism is apparent from the start: the usual thrusting sexualisation in the opening “Dreamland” brothel scene is gone."

"Overall, there’s less in the way of touristic (and Orientalist) opulence, although with its spare, sweeping design evoking a teeming metropolis and bursts of video-projected imagery and colour, it doesn’t short-change on spectacle."

"Whether such amendments will be enough to placate the naysayers, who knows? For me, the show is carried, as ever, by its fecund musical variety, its spine-tingling ballads especially, and the undying resonance of its depiction of fear, desperation and sacrifice amid war and upheaval."

"Assured interpretation of a classic that remains a sweeping epic"

"Directors Robert Hastie and Anthony Lau make the most of their large ensemble cast and their performance space, flooding the stage with boisterous musical numbers, balancing movement with quieter, more intimate moments between characters."

"Jessica Lee as Kim gives a tender and sympathetic performance, whilst Christian Maynard is in fine operatic voice as Chris. Ethan Le Phong excels as Thuy, demanding your attention with a genuine talent, and Joanna Ampil commands the stage with a domineering performance as the Engineer."

"On occasions, the juxtaposition and tonal shifts jar too sharply – nowhere more evident than the penultimate song, “American Dream”..."

"In Sheffield’s version the Engineer, who is normally a baritone, is played by Joanna Ampil. The casting of a soprano alters the register, making the opening songs shrieky, and reduces the sense that the heroine, Kim, is the victim of male selfishness."

"Jessica Lee makes a fragile, determined Kim and Christian Maynard brings likeable gentleness to her GI boyfriend Chris. The staging is less satisfactory, the backdrop being nastily metallic and the brothel scenes oddly antiseptic."

"With the evening in danger of lacking emotional wallop, Shanay Holmes saves things with a soulful Maybe"

"Slick machine of a musical rather than a radical rewrite"

"Billed as an opportunity to reframe Boublil and Schönberg’s original, this is more of a tweak but it is a visually captivating production"

"There are many positives in their shiny and accomplished crowdpleaser but this is more of a tweak than a rigorous reimagining... the story of Vietnamese “bargirl” Kim (Jessica Lee), who falls fatally in love with Chris (Christian Maynard), an American GI posted in Saigon, feels much like the musical we know, complete with stereotypes. A thoroughly diverse cast has been employed but can casting make the story’s racial stereotypes less problematic? Not always in this case."

"Kim is given a welcome steeliness, but there is only so much wiggle room within her role"

"Yet, for the unresolved politics in this story, Schönberg’s score has a booming beauty, so operatic at times that we can trace it to its original source in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, even if Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr’s lyrics (with additions by Michael Mahler) are rammed with schmaltz."

"What this production also brings is wow factor in craft and skill. It is a shining machine, slick and visually captivating."

"And there are a sweep of magnificent performances. Lee’s rich voice contains a well of emotion in songs like I Still Believe and Sun and Moon. Maynard plays Chris with heart and earnestness. Ampil is an adrenalised force as The Engineer"

"Performances that emphasise the rage and anguish"

"UK’s first brand-new production of the blockbuster musical is starker and grittier, but stops short of radical reinvention"

"Co-directors Anthony Lau and Robert Hastie promised to reframe the piece, tackling its problematic aspects head-on. What they deliver is certainly starker and grittier, with performances – which are universally stunning – that emphasise the rage and anguish among the romance and the spectacle. But it stops short of radical reinvention."

"... Joanna Ampil, herself a former West End Kim, is superb. With a vulpine smile, tattoos snaking up her arms and across her chest, and a garish leopard-print wardrobe, she marries steely verve and a survivor’s savage determination with a hint of a heart."

" It’s still essentially, and probably inescapably, the same old blunt, brash show – but Lau and Hastie give it a new and invigorating rough edge."