THE origins of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s colourful, Old Testament-inspired musical revue stretch all the way back to a 15-minute school ’pop cantata’ in the late 1960s.
Little can its long-haired, hippy-trouser wearing creators have imagined that more than 40 years on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor would still be pulling in the crowds - and several generations at that.
In fact, while it may have got bigger and glitzier over the past four decades – this current touring show from the Kenwright stable is populated by giant gold statues of Anubis (the Egyptian dog god), palm trees, inflatable sheep, singing camels, high-kicking cheerleaders and a flashing-eyed sphinx – at its heart it’s never fully escaped the feel of a school production, with all the innocent charm and exuberance that brings with it.
And ‘Dreamcoat’ is undoubtedly the most fun you’re going to get from the Book of Genesis, as the Rice-Lloyd Webber team take up the story of the colourful coat-clad favourite son, charting the fall and rise of his fortunes with a soundtrack of calypso, Hillbilly, rock ‘n’ roll, and Maurice Chevalier pastiche.
Three years ago Keith Jack, the Any Dream Will Do runner up, appeared at the Empire as narrator. This time he finally gets his hands on that coat, and it’s interesting to see how the Scotsman, only a teenager when he entered the BBC competition, has matured – both vocally (his voice, always strong, has also deepened) and physically, parading around with a tanned chest and in a silver lame loincloth.
His Close Every Door starts somewhat blandly but goes on to generate real passion, and he takes the much-covered Any Dream Will Do and succeeds in striking a real emotional chord.
The production’s musical director David Steadman has coaxed impressive vocal power from his mostly-male chorus, while Jennifer Potts proves an engaging, sweet-toned Narrator, and this week’s ‘Joseph choir’ of young singers from the Performers Theatre School are impressive in their tunefulness, tone, timing and clarity.
Clarity is in fact consistently good in this production, save for a little indistinct uh-huh-huhing from Adam Jarrell’s Pharaoh.
The final megamix is tiresomely long, but it’s a hard heart that doesn’t leave the theatre with a smile.
8/10: Colourful
by Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo
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WATCHING the story of Joseph and his 11 jealous brothers is like reading the Book of Genesis on an acid trip – inflatable sheep spring up from nowhere, the Pharoah is an Ancient Egyptian Elvis Presley and his subjects cheerleaders and quarterbacks.
The energetic professional cast and singers from Liverpool’s Performers Theatre School are led by Scottish actor Keith Jack, who came second in BBC1’s Any Dream Will Do talent show back in 2007, but has matured well into the role.
With his Colgate smile, he makes a likeable Joseph, despite the owner of the technicolor dreamcoat being so smug that his brothers’ act of selling him into slavery seems almost restrained.
Tim Rice’s cheeky lyrics and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s upbeat score remove any anguish from the Bible story – Jacob’s sons delivering the false news of their brother’s death in the form of a hoedown and bursting into a calypso when, as reformed men, they beg Joseph to spare other brother Benjamin a spell in jail.
First performed in the West End in 1973, some of the orchestrations feel quite dated, the songs are excessively repeated and the story-telling is Genesis crossed with Nickelodeon, but none of that detracts from its overriding sense of fun.
by Laura Davis
© Liverpool Daily Post
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