I remember going to see Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the early 1990s with Kerry one rainy afternoon in London. We weren’t planning to go and had decided to go to the matinee about five minutes before it started and bought a couple of tickets for £10 each from a tout outside. We were sat in the stalls at the back but it was a Saturday afternoon and there we were in the audience and when the show started we knew we were going to see something special.
As we were actors at the time and loved the theatre we knew some of the songs from having performed them at east 15 and this song was one that I had sang as a duet myself in the past so it was exciting to see it in its original context.
The story of Miss Saigon concerns an American soldier in Vietnam who gets separated from his Vietnamese lover and is forced to leave the country without knowing she is still alive and is having his son. An extremely sad story and not too dissimilar to ‘Madame Butterfly’ in many of its themes it is a great show and well worth watching. The futility of war, the nature of conflict as well as love and loss and the generally tragic consequences of war are the central themes of this work and the music is truly wonderful. ‘The Last Night Of The World’ is the song that Chris and Kim sing before the American retreat from Saigon. The songs ends and Kim says, ‘You’re going to leave me now?’ to which Chris replies ‘Yes, I’m going to leave…and take you out with me.’
Now listen to the song….
love this song... awesome show too!
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