MISS SAIGON documentary and Michelle Visage musicals programme to play on BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 have announced further Spring highlights in April and May, including an hour-long documentary featuring Miss Saigon and Michelle Visage - The Musicals That Changed My Life.

The Heat is On in Saigon marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Jeremy Vine looks back at the history and legacy of the war through the music of that era, and through the prism of the hit musical, Miss Saigon. Through insights from historians and those at the show’s heart, Jeremy discovers what it took to make a musical about a war. He hears from the creatives behind it, and learns how this traumatic period in history in Saigon and Vietnam was put on the stage, and the role of its haunting music, including ‘Last Night of the World’, ‘The Heat is on in Saigon’, ‘The Movie in My Mind’, and more. There are also insights from Lea Salonga, Jon Jon Briones & Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil.

In Michelle Visage – The Musicals That Changed My Life, Michelle - a lifelong fan of musicals and currently sitting in for Elaine Paige on Sunday (1-3pm) until Sunday 9 March – presents a love letter to the shows which mean the most to her. Her love of musicals started as a child when she discovered the West Side Story soundtrack LP in her parents’ record collection. She then spent her childhood watching musicals of classics such as Bye Bye Birdie, On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof and The Sound of Music.

Michelle reflects on her favourite shows from Evita, Cabaret and A Chorus Line, through to recent hits such as SIX, Rent and Hamilton. We hear how they inspired her to perform at high school, later realising her dream of becoming a West End star in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and The Addams Family. Michelle pays tribute to Liza Minnelli, Julie Andrews, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Radio 2’s very own Queen of Musicals, Elaine Paige. The show reflects the history of musical theatre and is packed with Michelle’s personal stories and, of course, classic scores and songs.

Michelle says: “I dreamed that dream, I wished upon that star, and you know what... it came true!”