Photo: Roy Beusker/PA Wire

Hit musical Miss Saigon is to return to the West End next year a quarter of a century after it made its debut.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh said the show, which is partly based on the opera Madame Butterfly, would have a “more gritty and realistic approach” than the original.

The musical, which is set in the final days of the Vietnam War, is the story of the relationship between an American GI and a young Vietnamese woman.

Mackintosh said: “If anything, the tragic love story of Miss Saigon has become even more relevant today. In the last 25 years our country has become involved in similar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the way we weren’t in Vietnam, and the American Dream has been buffeted by the reality of recent history.

“The new production has taken a more gritty and realistic approach to the design than the operatic original but still delivers the power and epic sweep of Boublil and Schonberg’s great score.”

The original show has been performed in some 300 cities around the world and seen by more than 35 million people.

It will be staged at London’s Prince Edward Theatre in May and feature a new song, called Maybe, which was written by its creators, Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil.