The West End and Broadway star was down the Bay for her Stage Screen and Everything In Between tour and it was an absolute delight. My introduction to Lea was as the singing voice of Jasmine in the 1992 Disney animated film Aladdin but I have listened to her perform everything from Disney songs to pop, musical theatre and even her releases in her native Filipino language, so I was excited to see her live. The crowd were too, with cheers as a recording announcing her Tony Award win (for Kim in Miss Saigon on Broadway in 1991) played before Lea walked onto the stage to a standing ovation, leading her to joke that she hadn’t even done anything yet, but was now going to try and earn it.
There was a range of songs performed throughout the two halves including movie classics like Staying Alive, My Heart Will Go On (where she admitted her love for Celine Dion), and Everything I Do (I Do it For You), which came after asking the crowd to picture the iconic movie moments that accompanied the tracks. She also performed a range of musical theatre songs including ones from The Greatest Showman, Sweeney Todd – which even led to a pretty good Cockney accent -, Gypsy and Waitress. There was also a tribute to Stephen Sondheim with some of his songs including Being Alive, which led to a quip about how she wasn’t at the end of both Mis Saigon and Les Miserables.
Of course there was also a performance of two songs from Miss Saigon, which followed a speech about how the role (which was firs.