Review: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

It was the Narrator’s night in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat opening at the Grand Opera House this week. This was a refreshed, reinvented production of the show first performed in 1972 and it belonged to Christina Bianco, West End star and a pint sized powerhouse. Adam Filipe’s Joseph was good musically and he is a fit guy but there was a smile deficit and slight charisma bypass in his performance. You may think any Joseph will do, as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score’s so beguiling, Tim Rice’s words so winning, but that isn’t the case. The sense of minor disappointment may be because anyone who has seen Jason Donovan in the eponymous role knows the benchmark. You tend to measure other performances by successors against his definitive account.

But there was lots to like and be amazed by, as noted starting with Bianco’s singing, dancing, acting (she was a great cougar preying on young Joseph) and holding the musical together. Her scenes with the child actors were touching, her encounters with the character actors more than impressive. What also pleased was the way director Billy Mitchell had had fun with various numbers. Pharaoh, played by X factor winner Joe McElderry with verve, came across as a kind of Elvis impersonator, Uh-huh-huhing his way through Poor, Poor Pharaoh. There was a definite Vegas vibe and he sported a spangly cloak as a loud Welcome to Egypt sign descended. There was also a country and Western take on a sad number and a French chanson atmosphere about Those Canaan Days. Berets were indeed worn, French accents were adopted by Joseph’s brothers and it all came together with Gallic charm.

It is a sad story and where Filipe came into his own was, unsurprisingly, with the no smile required number in prison. He was powerful when delivering Close Every Door, memorable even. You know a musical has succeeded when you exit with the tunes in your head. We did. Lloyd Webber, as is his wont, has two to three cracking songs, although all the music is winning and they became earworms. There was discussion over whether the reprise of Any Dream will Do, with its cute three note motif after each line, should be a duet as it became with the Narrator adding weight to Joseph’s singing. I found it ok, others did not.

This is a Joseph you should see and after the bows and standing ovation, we remained on our feet for a medley of songs or megamix. It was foot stompingly good and joyous and Filipe’s Joseph finally looked more relaxed, and smiled quite a bit.

Jane Hardy