I had been looking forward to seeing this musical for some time. Of course we all know the film with Yul Brynner’s excellent performance as the King of Siam. Of course however, it is Elaine Paige that was the real star of this show.

There was an excellent set and great costumes. I saw the show on 27th of December, a few days after Christmas, so all of the actors were in high spirits and it was a great show. All of the children involved in the show gave fantastic performances, and sang very well.

I very much enjoyed Paul Nakauchi’s performance as King, and thought that even though he was not quite as stern in the role as Brynner, that he put up a very decent performance. I also thought that Aura Deva and Sean Ghazi who played Tuptim and Lun Tha, the secret lovers were both outstanding and there performance of the song “We Kiss in A Shadow” was equally impressive.

Paige also put forward an impressive performance, which I thoroughly enjoyed. All in all, this a great new musical which everybody should see, with no bad points. I think that it should not be compared to the film, and that one cannot expect a set design to be as good in a stage production as a movie, but the standard of acting was similar to that in the film, apart from the fact that the actors new they were performing to a live audience (which induces light slap-stick and so forth for the enjoyment of the crowd).