‘No one in this country could produce a musical without the Welsh’
Cathryn Scott talks to theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh about Miss Saigon, the massive production that has just kicked off at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff...
Your new production of Boublil and Schönberg’s Miss Saigon has wowed audiences and critics alike with a record nine Whatsonstage Awards. What can we expect when it comes to Cardiff?
Even if you have seen Miss Saigon before it will feel like a new show.
This is a completely new production. We re-staged it in London to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary and then took it to Broadway.
We will be bringing the full London production to Cardiff as part of our UK tour. It’s often not logistically possible to take a full show on tour but this time we are.
The last time Miss Saigon came to Cardiff it was a terrific success and we are so looking forward to coming back.
What is it about Miss Saigon that still appeals so much to audiences?
It’s like all great musicals – it has a strong, timeless story.
It’s set during the Vietnam War – a terrible time in history – but at the heart of the musical is a love story of two people torn apart and a mother’s love for her child. It’s a very moving show.
It’s an ambitious staging – a huge ensemble cast, acrobats, and a real helicopter! How do you ensure the theatrics don’t take away from the music and the story?
When we redid the show we were able to take advantage of huge technical advances. The big sequences are more spectacular than 30 years ago. However, it is all there to propel the story. Every segment is there only to underline what the human beings are going through.
The famous helicopter scene, for example, is how the Vietnamese people were abandoned by the Americans as the North Vietnamese army came in. What makes the audience sob is seeing the faces of the people left behind. It’s not the helicopter. I don’t believe in gratuitous spectacles.
Is there an element of risk in re-staging such a well-loved musical?
People’s tastes change with every new generation. I have been producing for more than 50 years and feel incredibly lucky to have musicals running for more than 30 years. I never thought at my age I’d still be relevant – but I’d have to pack my bags and quit now if I thought I was only doing it for nostalgia.
New creative staff come on board with every show to ensure things keep moving. It is a privilege to be able to go back and reinvent my own shows.
But I don’t want to make changes for changes’ sake. I won’t sanction something new unless it really works.
Many people coming to watch Miss Saigon will never have seen it before. I want to give them a show that’s on the cutting edge of theatre.
What makes a successful musical?
I never know [laughs]. What attracts me most of all is the story.
Quite often it might seem a really unlikely story for a huge successful musical – Miss Saigon is set in the Vietnam War and Les Mis in the French student revolution, for example.
A good musical will always have great music based on great writing. Music needs to tell a story. If you have a musical where the music is beautiful but it doesn’t tell a story, it is not as powerful.
What do you enjoy about bringing your shows to Wales?
Firstly, Wales Millennium Centre is a brilliant venue. It was fantastic when it opened – not just as a showcase for Welsh National Opera and the other resident companies, but also so the big shows can tour to Cardiff.
And secondly, no one in this country could produce a musical without the Welsh. I have employed so much Welsh talent over the years – Jonathan Pryce, Michael Ball, John Owen-Jones among many, many others.
It’s always lovely to come here. It is in the nature of the Welsh to sing and express themselves dramatically; that is why so many great performers have come from Wales.
For a small country, it punches so far above its weight. Musical theatre and Wales are inextricably linked.
You first knew you wanted to become a theatre producer when you were eight years old. What inspired you?
It was my second visit to a musical in Bristol called Salad Days, on my eighth birthday.
Julian Slade had written it but I’d
worked out that he was also playing the piano in the pit. So I marched up and introduced myself to him. Julian didn’t just smile and give me an autograph; he asked if I’d like to come backstage, and showed me how all the scenery moved around.
I said, “I’m going to do this when I grow up”.
When I was nine, a family member said they were listening to the radio and there was an interview with someone who did the job I wanted to and told me they are called impresarios. I said, “I don’t want to be an impresario; they stage other people’s shows. I want to do my own shows.” What a precocious nine-year-old I was!
I stayed friends with Julian throughout his life. He actually left me some of the rights to Salad Days in his will.
You’re now 71. What will happen to musical theatre when you retire?
It will carry on! Theatre has a wonderful way of reinventing itself.
There are lots of exciting young producers out there and creative writers. Their original ideas will become the classics of the future.
Whenever I take my final curtain call, I know my shows will live on. It is wonderful to know you have left a legacy like that.
My other great love is buildings and I have rebuilt many London theatres.
Most recently, I’ve renovated the Victoria Palace Theatre which will soon stage the UK production of Hamilton.
It is wonderful to know that those buildings are being left in a state that they will survive another 100 years.
You are bringing the smash hit musical Hamilton to London – a hip-hop musical about the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton. How do you think the production will translate to the UK stage?
I’m not a great scholar of American history – but that doesn’t matter because Hamilton is a story about people.
The behaviour that was going on with the founding of America is no different to a lot of what we see today.
I didn’t know what to expect when I first saw it.
I knew that the songs used hip-hop – but it is brilliant storytelling.
I might not have picked up on some of the more subtle references on American history but I didn’t have a problem with that any more than the French references in Les Mis. I recognised a great musical.
It is such a great production and the advanced bookings are doing amazingly ahead of the show opening in December.
■ Miss Saigon is at Wales Millennium Centre until Saturday, January 6, 2018. Call the box office on 029 2063 64 64 or visit www.wmc.org.uk to book tickets or for more information.