“Mega” musical Miss Saigon a coup for Newcastle’s Theatre Royal
Newcastle is to be the launchpad next year for a new production of “mega hit” Miss Saigon, a blockbuster musical never before seen on a stage in the city.
The show, which has a famous helicopter scene, will premiere at the Theatre Royal in autumn 2025 ahead of a 40-week UK tour – a “coup” for the venue, according to chief executive Marianne Locatori.
“It’s really exciting,” she added, “and it’s in line with our ambition of partnering with producers to open shows in Newcastle when it makes sense for both parties.”
Michael Harrison, co-producer of the show with Sir Cameron Mackintosh, described Miss Saigon as “one of the mega musicals of the 1980s and ’90s”.
“My big message is that this is a major, major musical for the North East,” he said.
“It should be the biggest event in the Theatre Royal’s calendar next year and not just because we’re playing there.
“We’ll be resident for five weeks, playing for three but rehearsing and ‘tech-ing’ the show before that.
“An awful lot of actors, musicians and crew will arrive. I think it’ll be great for the city and the local economy – and it’ll be a great advert for Newcastle because I always tell people how wonderful it is.”
Michael, who was born in Wallsend, produces the annual Theatre Royal panto and 22 others around the country as chief executive of Crossroads Pantomimes.
But separately he is also in demand to produce or co-produce other big shows and is recently back from New York to oversee Sunset Boulevard opening on Broadway.
Miss Saigon first opened in London 35 years ago, the much anticipated new one from the French creators of Les Misérables, Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Alain Boublil (lyrics).
It notched up 4264 performances before closing 10 years later.
Set in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam war, it’s a love story featuring an American GI, Chris, and the young Vietnamese woman, Kim, he first encounters in a sleazy Saigon nightclub owned by a slippery character known as The Engineer.
The famous helicopter scene recalls the last Americans being whisked away from Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City) ahead of its capture by the Communist North Vietnamese.
The show is loosely based on Puccini’s 1904 opera Madame Butterfly, in which a young Japanese girl waits vainly for the return of her husband, an American naval officer.
Inspiration also came from a historic magazine photo showing a Vietnamese mother leaving her child at an air base in the hope its GI father would take it away for a better life in America.
Michael Harrison said he and Cameron Mackintosh, who produced the original 1989 production of Miss Saigon and subsequent revivals, have a “terrific” relationship.
“We did Barnum together. When he decided he wanted to create a new Miss Saigon that could play theatres it hadn’t played before, he asked me if I’d get involved.
“I always try to keep Newcastle on the map theatrically so said, ‘How do you feel about starting it in Newcastle?’
“I like feeling that Newcastle is up there with Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Bristol, all cities with theatres twice and sometimes three times bigger. I’ll do all I can to keep the Theatre Royal punching above its weight.”
Michael said he had loved Miss Saigon since first seeing it as a boy in Toronto with his grandfather.
The last time the show was in the North East was at the more capacious Sunderland Empire in 2018.
Marianne Locatori was working at Plymouth Theatre Royal when that original touring production took off from there in 2004, coming to the Empire the following year.
“Twenty years on I think it’s brilliant that producers like Michael are reimagining these really classic blockbuster musicals and enabling them to tour to other places,” she said.
“And it’s really exciting that we’re opening it. It’s a coup for us.
“There’s excitement in being around that period of initial creativity that you can’t get during a week as part of a long tour.
“It’s great for the team at the theatre and for talent development because you have the creatives in the building. It’s also great that audiences in Newcastle will get to see the show before anybody else.”
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The giant set with its helicopter prop prevented Miss Saigon visiting Newcastle 20 years ago but there will no problem this time – nor, promised Michael, a lack of drama and spectacle.
“If Les Misérables (2019) and Mary Poppins (2016), two of the other big Cameron Mackintosh shows of recent years, can play there, why shouldn’t Miss Saigon?
“This is a rethinking of the show. New people come along with new ideas so we’re going to give it a new visual treatment. I’ve just seen some of the designs that are coming through and they’re very exciting.
“And there are still going to be 14 in the orchestra and 24 or 25 in the cast. Musicals are reinvented all the time. It’s just a matter of how you create them for these theatres.”
The new production is to be directed by the experienced Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy who also directed Barnum and recently co-directed Oliver! with Matthew Bourne, a production opening in the West End next month.
The process of casting for Miss Saigon has just begun. “It’s a show with great parts, really well written characters, and we’re stretching the net far and wide,” said Michael.
And he added: “I think the combination of emotion, music, big score and great story will make for a terrific night at the theatre.”
Miss Saigon will run at the Theatre Royal from October 4 to 25, 2025.
Tickets will go on sale to Friends Plus members on Monday, December 2; to Friends on Wednesday, December 4; to groups, schools, Flexi Priority Pass & Advantage members on Friday, December 6; and to the general public on Tuesday, December 10 – all at 10am.
For tickets, go to the Theatre Royal website or call 0191 2327010.