Review: Miss Saigon, Prince Edward Theatre with TodayTix

“I'll do my dance, I'll make them drink"

I’m pretty there’s a clause in the gay contract that means it is illegal to turn down the offer of drinks in the Julie Andrews room so who was I to resist when the folks at TodayTix invited me to try out their mobile ticketing app by coming along to see Miss Saigon. Founders Merritt Baer and Brian Fenty have had big success on Broadway with their service, offering tickets for a range of shows one week to one hour before showtime and boasting of enabling tickets to be purchased in 30 seconds or less.

And I have to say that they’ve pretty much nailed it. The interface of the app is bright and easy to use (certainly it was on my iPhone6), there’s a wide range of West End shows available and the process of choosing and booking tickets at all price levels is simple and speedy with a little seatmap showing you where in the theatre your selected seats are. It really does streamline the ticket-buying process so that making any last minute decisions to see a show that much easier.

As for Miss Saigon, I may not have been the biggest fan of the show (review #1, review #2) but I was intrigued to take up the offer to see it again mainly to see the new cast members – the brilliant Natalie Mendoza (fresh from the epic Here Lies Love) and Chris Peluso (from the original US cast of Beautiful). Mendoza was exceptional if under-utilised as Gigi, her ‘The Movie In My Mind’ is spine-tinglingly good and Peluso is a solid success as the dunder-headed Chris.

The show’s larger charms still elude me though, I can never seem to get sufficiently engaged with the story to really care about what’s happening, no matter how good Eva Noblezada is or how charismatic Jon Jon Briones manages to be. Still, I was glad for the opportunity to revisit the show and experience the smoothness of TodayTix transaction for the first time – the other top tip is the daily Kinky Boots lottery that they’re running, £15 tickets for that evening’s performance up for grabs. 

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes (with interval) 
Booking until 27th February 2016 


Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,