Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat feelgood tour

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at New Theatre Oxford

From January 7-11

Review by JON LEWIS

MANY people’s first experience of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s first commercial musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is in performing the show at school or singing its songs in assembly. Written when they were themselves schoolboys in the late 60s, Joseph is often a vehicle for a celebrity performer such as Donny Osmond who originated the role of Joseph in the States.

The current feelgood production has no household names in the cast. It’s directed by Laurence Connor and is the touring version of a 2019 revival at the London Palladium. The focus of the musical is the Narrator (American singer and comedian Christina Bianco – a familiar presence at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), a shapeshifter who flits enjoyably in and out of characters wearing a range of disguises. In the first scene she’s a chic storyteller gathering a group of young children who listen to her Old Testament story. She’s excellent.

Joseph (played by the youthful Adam Felipe who acted in Whistle Down the Wind at The Watermill theatre) succeeds because of his intelligence. Sold into slavery in Egypt by his many brothers who are jealous that their father Jacob favours him, after a period of imprisonment, he becomes the equivalent of prime minister, saving Egypt from famine. Eventually he’s reunited with his brothers after they realise they were wrong to mistreat him.

Connor introduces some fun modernisations that include the Narrator’s adlib about photobombing. The props (designer, Morgan Large) sees jovial puppet camels attached to tricycles and skateboarding sheep moving across the stage. The songs make the show, exuding a youthful vigour. Whether it’s Pharoah (Alex Woodward) entering as Elvis in Las Vegas or the Narrator imitating Edith Piaf in a pastiche of a French chanson, the cleverness of such young creatives in writing calypso, country, cancan and cheerleader numbers still enchants today.

Hits Any Dream Will Do, Jacob and Sons and One More Angel in Heaven reinforce the musical’s classic status. Joann M Hunter’s choreography for these songs is a delight, humour found regularly in the dancers’ gestures.

A cheerful way to start the year.