Lee Mead in Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
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“Anyone from anywhere can make it/If they get a lucky break,” sings Joseph in the song “Stone the Crows” in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As performed in the West End’s latest revival of the show at the Adelphi Theatre by Lee Mead, the line has an extra resonance. For, like Connie Fisher in the current London revival of
The Sound of Music, Mead is here after winning a reality TV public vote for the part. But unlike Fisher, who though professionally trained had never worked on the West End stage before, Mead has already understudied both Raoul in
The Phantom of the Opera in London and Chris in
Miss Saigon on tour, as well as appearing as Pharoah in Bill Kenwright’s touring incarnation of
Joseph.
Fisher had more to prove, but she also had more opportunity to prove it. By contrast, not much in the way of acting is required in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s earliest through-sung biblical pop oratorio. Though the title character makes a fabled journey from family outcast, sold into slavery by his 11 jealous brothers, to dream interpreter to the ruler of Egypt, there is not much in the way of dramatic progression for the actor to chart, either. Instead, Joseph essentially has to look pretty and sing sweetly. On both counts, this Joseph turns out to be appropriately dreamy. With his lean, buffed-up torso and an unruly mop of dark curly hair that makes it look as if he’s been plugged into an electrical socket, he’s picture-perfect. And with a resonant voice that’s reminiscent of a young Michael Ball, he’s pitch-perfect, too. He may have somehow missed the boy band boat, but he’s a pop poppet with a bright, instantly engaging stage personality.
That, of course, is what the show that launched Lloyd Webber and Rice’s collaboration has in spades, too. Originally conceived for a 15-minute end-of-term school concert (premiered at Colet Court School in West London in 1968), Joseph was gradually stretched. First it was a 20 minute-piece and then longer, mainly thanks to reprises and the addition of an interval, as it found a professional stage life via runs at the Edinburgh fringe, London’s Roundhouse and repeated U.K. tours and occasional West End runs. It has become one of the most iconic and beloved of all British stage musicals mainly thanks to its place in the schools and amateur repertoire, which has embedded the score into the national DNA.
Preeya Kalidas in Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
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It’s a show that has long provided the earliest introduction to musical theatre for many kids. And if Lloyd Webber and Rice, together and separately, went onto much bigger (and better) things, including the Adelphi’s last tenant, the short-lived revival of
Evita, nothing they have ever done has been fresher or funnier that this. But can something so slight, bright, brisk and breezy survive transposition into the kind of mega-musical that Lloyd Webber would come to pioneer?
The late Steven Pimlott sought to provide an answer when he directed a London Palladium revival in 1991. It was conceived as a star vehicle for Jason Donovan, then at the height of his pop fame. Now Pimlott’s production has been pressed back into service, both as a memorial to him and as a star-making vehicle for Lloyd Webber’s latest theatrical marketing wheeze that has always put him, like Joseph himself, ahead of his time.
Truth to tell, some of the show’s jaunty charm is drowned in the lavish parade of Mark Thompson’s sets and props that strenuously introduce some jokes of their own, like multi-coloured sheep, talking camels and Egyptian landmarks that include the Sphinx and the London Eye. And then there’s the mega-mix finale, which reprises (yet again) some of the songs as all-singing, all-dancing karaoke. But the unbridled joy and naive delights of the score cannot be suppressed, and—as led by an irrepressibly chirpy (if rather too glamorous) narrator from Preeya Kalidas—sha la la
Joseph—it’ll do just fine.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Original Direction by Steven Pimlott
Associate Direction by Nichola Traherne
Adelphi Theatre