Edinburgh Playhouse
By Thom Dibdin
The dream finally came true for Keith Jack last night, when the Dalkeith singer stepped out on to the Edinburgh Playhouse stage in the title role of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
It wasn't any old dream either, as Jack, 22, came a ADVERTISEMENTclose second in BBC1's Any Dream Will Do. He might already have played the narrator in previous tours to the same venue, but this was the role he wanted, and this was the theatre he wanted to play it in.
"I was very nervous," Jack revealed just a few minutes after the show's final standing ovation. "It is a relief now and it was a great audience tonight. It was a buzz to finally step on the Playhouse stage as Joseph."
In the event, Jack's performance added a much needed spark to a production which was ominously dull for its opening half an hour.
Trina Hill sang the narrator - the role which Jack made his own in the 2007 tour when Craig Chalmers sang Joseph. She has a lovely voice, but no real sense of storytelling or ability to annunciate her lines.
Henry Metcalfe, who is also the show's choreographer, was woefully underpowered in both his roles of Joseph's dad Jacob, and Potiphar, the millionaire who buys Joseph as a slave.
It wasn't exactly bad, just half-hearted. Everywhere, from blow-up sheep which only part-inflated, to handmaids who plodded when they should have tripped lightly, the production did a disservice to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
At which point, with Joseph clapped into chains, Jack was left on stage alone, to perform Close Every Door. It is a defining number for any Joseph, and Jack's full-bodied, mature voice combined with a real understanding of the lyrics to get it just about right. It was a big four-star performance in an overall three-star show.
Tellingly, from that moment on, the whole production picked up its energy levels.
After the show Jack revealed that the moment was particularly poignant for him. He has been inspired by his family and friends, he said, "especially my granddad, who is no longer here. During Close Every Door, I got quite emotional because I was thinking he should have been here tonight".
Jack's granddad would have certainly enjoyed it, and the packed audience did too.
Fourteen-year-old Chloe Anderson of Musselburgh said: "We came to see Keith Jack. I've seen him on the telly, and he was better then I expected. His voice was really good."
Elaine Rice, a worker at Heriot-Watt university celebrating her 50th birthday, agreed. Having seen Joseph twice before she said that Jack was "much better than I thought he would be".
©2010 Johnston Press Digital Publishing
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