Joseph: 137 recommendations
Sub-sections
Commissioned by Colet Court School in Barnes for their spring concert in 1968, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was originally presented as a fifteen minute long pop cantata.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice felt their creation had potential for success, and encouraged by Andrew’s father Bill, second and third performances were organised at recitals with the piece being expanded each time.
Despite a recording of 35 minute incarnation, it was really the success of rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar that allowed Rice and Lloyd Webber to work on and promote Joseph, with the first run of the completed production at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester a few years later.
Despite its lengthy history, Joseph did not open in London’s West End until 1991, when the iconic Steven Pimlott production was staged at the Palladium with Jason Donovan in the title role.
There have, of course, been numerous productions of the show, both professional and amateur. Appropriate considering its beginnings, it has been reported that Joseph has been staged by over 20,000 schools.
A common theme in professional productions has been the casting of a celebrity in the title role. These have included Jason Donovan, Philip Schofield, Donny Osmond and, rather sadly, H from Steps and Stephen Gately.
Of course, this latest production found its star (as well as much of its publicity) in the BBC’s 2007 talent search Any Dream Will Do. The eventual winner was of course Lee Mead who, unlike many of his opponents, already had quite a pedigree in musical theatre, having appeared in The Phantom Of The Opera and Miss Saigon in the West End, as well as a touring production of Joseph.
Reviews
The Independent
Rainbow glow adds the finishing touch to dazzling performances
Has Andrew Lloyd Webber managed, once again, to use a TV talent contest to make an unknown a star? Commercially, yes indeed, going by the hyperactive box office and an audience that reaches beyond the usual patrons of the West End - such as the woman who, entering the theatre behind an actress, asked her date, "Is she in the show?"
The Guardian
Andrew Lloyd Webber's score shows his undoubted gift for pastiche, embracing, as it does, country and western and Caribbean calypso. Tim Rice's lyrics are also crisp, jaunty and clever. I still laugh, even after all these years, at Joseph's advice to the dreaming Pharaoh: "All those things you saw in your pyjamas, Are a long-range forecast to your farmers." Stripped to its essentials, the show has the innocent exuberance of youth and shows how much Lloyd Webber's innate romanticism benefited from Rice's verbal cheek.
The Times
Given the freshness and lack of pretension that marked the show even after its creators revised and extended it for the professionals at the shabby Young Vic, it would almost have been a plus if the whole grisly process had thrown up a larky kid with more enthusiasm than talent.
As it happens, it threw up Lee Mead, who turns out to be both talented and enthusiastic.
