Saigon

Caroline Guiela Nguyen brings Saigon to the Young Barbican Theatre from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 March 2027. It's the UK premiere of a play she wrote and directed, and it marks her return to the Barbican after LACRIMA ran there in 2025. The production was first staged in 2017, so it's had some time to settle before making its way over here.

The whole thing takes place inside a restaurant. Nguyen uses a wide panoramic stage to make the room two places at once: Vietnam in the 1950s and France in the 1990s, so characters who could never have met end up at neighbouring tables. Across generations, the play follows people reflecting on exile, memory and history, and it doesn't shy away from the intimate pain that comes from colonial arrogance, culture clashes and migration. It's performed in French and Vietnamese with English surtitles, and runs three hours and 15 minutes including a 20-minute interval.

Nguyen is a French-Vietnamese director, founder of Les Hommes Approximatifs and Artistic Director of Théâtre National de Strasbourg. She's not the only one on the credits: the play is performed by a large company of alternating actors, with set by Alice Duchange, costumes by Benjamin Moreau, lighting by Jérémie Papin, sound by Antoine Richard and music by Teddy Gauliat-Pitois. Critics have described it as "a glorious and heart-wrenching theatrical testament."

Standard tickets start from £24, with a £4 transaction fee on top. There's a Young Barbican price of £12, and Barbican members get 20% off, with corporate members getting 25%. The run is three days: Thursday 11, Friday 12 and Saturday 13 March 2027, at the Young Barbican Theatre, The Barbican, London EC2Y 8DS.