Lea Salonga – Stage, Screen & Everything in Between at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh

This is going to be a short review!

Not because I don't have anything to say about the performer in question but because I don't know enough superlatives!

Besides, I never intended to review this show. I'd gone along as an ordinary punter, no notebook in hand, having paid for my ticket, so apologies if I don't really go into the musical content of the show.

But I came away knowing I just had to tell the world (well, starting with UK Theatre Network!) what a magnificent performer Lea Salonga is. What a powerful set of pipes does she have!

I first saw her when, as a 17-year-old Filipino student, she won the title role of Miss Saigon – and the hearts of theatregoers everywhere. More recently I twice saw her headlining Sondheim's Old Friends in London's West End. And I wanted to hear more.

But nothing prepared me for this show. As she sang song after song with barely a breath in between, her capacity audience went wild. It almost seemed like the 2,000-seater theatre just wasn't big enough to contain her powerful voice, but how lucky I felt to be seeing her at this venue and not in some huge stadium, which she could undoubtedly fill, both with her voice and her fans. And how privileged I felt to see such a huge star connect so warmly, and so closely, with her audience, and with her brother Gerard as her musical director.

As a footnote for those who only know her from Miss Saigon, the multi-award winner is officially a 'Disney Legend', having provided the singing voice for Jasmine in Aladdin and Mulan in Mulan and Mulan II, and included in her show songs from those two movies, as well as the Cockney Mrs Lovett from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, and so many other great songs. We certainly got our money's worth! Brava! Haste ye back!