It's Official: Miss Saigon Closes 30 October
Date: 30 June 1999
The rumours that made headlines last week about the closure of Cameron Mackintosh's hit musical Miss Saigon have been proved true. The show, which had been booking to 29 January 2000, posted 'early' closing notices today. It will now finish its remarkable run at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 30 October, a month and ten days after it celebrates its 10th anniversary in the West End.
Speculation had been that impresario Mackintosh would either close the show on or around the anniversary on 20 September 1999 or keep it going until spring 2000 when he could replace it with his musical stage adaptation of John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. That project is unlikely to be ready for production until next March or April so what will happen with the theatre is now in question. Other potential runners which have been queueing up for West End venues include a new incarnation of Boublil and Schonberg's Martin Guerre which has been touring regionally, a revival of The King and I starring Elaine Paige and American film star Lou Diamond Phillips, and a musical version of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles which opens in Norwich at the end of September.
Written by Les Miserables composers Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, Miss Saigon transplants the Madam Butterfly story to war-torn Vietnam. Cultures and aspirations clash when a local prostitute meets her GI Joe during the fall of Saigon in 1975. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, the cast currently features Joanna Ampil, Leo Valdez, Scott Anson and Richard Lloyd King.
Miss Saigon became the Drury Lane's longest running show in 1994 when it topped the previous record held by My Fair Lady. It has grossed more than £150 million in ticket sales during its tenancy in London and more than £700 million worldwide with productions in New York, Germany and elsewhere. By the end of its run, it will have played 4,264 performances in the West End.
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