Theatre and dance

Review - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

By AF Harrold
April 22, 2009

There’s plenty to like about the show – it’s high-octane, has wonderful dancing, no let ups, good singing and some catchy tunes – but there are things that begin to wear thin the more times you see it.

Early Lloyd-Webber’s insatiable desire to include musical pastiches at every turn starts to seem facile and juvenile – the reason there’s a country and western song and a calypso and an Elvis tune and 1920s’ flapper number are because they’re lazy musical shorthand to describing the emotional content he wants to get across – whereas, even by his next musical (which was Jesus Christ Superstar) he’s become more confident in his ability to be able to do this more often in his own voice, without relying on anachronistic and jarring styles – which are fun once, but upon repeated viewing simply make the show seem schizophrenic in its make up.

That said, the show does have some great cast – Rachael Louise Miller is a wonderful narrator/emcee and all of the 11 brothers (who double as almost everyone else – from palace guards to dance troupe) give the show their all, each getting their moment in the spotlight.

Craig Chalmers (who we are told several times he took part in some sort of television talent contest) sings nicely as Joseph, but is hampered by looking like Luke Skywalker in the early scenes, and by gurning more than Christopher Eccleston.

Of course, it’s a horrible role to have to play – the whiney Goody Two-Shoes. It’s easy to understand why his brothers took against him when he was busy being the favourite son and getting the fancy coat and telling them all about his very obvious dreams of superiority instead of being polite and not telling them how one day they’d all bow down to him.

Although this doesn’t excuse their selling him into slavery, it does make it understandable.

The story grows more unbelievable as time goes by – Joseph ends up in Pharaoh’s dungeon, from where he ends up as Pharaoh’s right-hand man after doing some business with dreams.

Except this is entirely new business – before, back in Canaan, he was the one who had dreams which he couldn’t interpret (‘your 11 sheaves of wheat bowed down to my one, what does that mean, brothers?’), and now he’s busy interpreting other people’s dreams (‘I have never been wrong before’ he says – presumably because he’s never interpreted a dream before).

It’s inconsistencies like this that begin to niggle the more times you see the show, or if you begin to think about it for a minute.

And then there’s the ‘giving-it-large’ dance megamix encore (well, actually it’s Scene 19, but the story’s over and they’ve taken a bow – it’s an encore, before the rest of the encores) which is the most horrendous piece of theatrical entertainment I’ve ever had to sit through – putting a ‘dance beat’ behind any music does not instantly make it more fun or more energetic or more interesting – it simply makes it hugely irritating and reminds one of every other good song that has been ruined in the last 20 years by the same disrespectful procedure – and yes, I’m thinking of Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner among other things.

If dancers can’t find the beat without having it drummed into their brains by moronic machines, then get of the dance floor.

Nevertheless, that said, the rest of the show is a lot of fun, performed by people who seem to really be enjoying the job, which is all I ask – and there are plenty of good songs throughout, well sung. The dancing is highly enjoyable and the feet tap a lot. Even the hundreds of children sat on the stage throughout aren’t off-putting.

It does seem this particular production has been touring some time since the paint is half scraped of the palm trees of the set, who have poor broken leaves, and many of the band and the cast are probably long serving experts at it – and that shows in their commitment and their capabilities.

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What a pretentious review!,and I have read many.

The Calypso and French and Elvis scenes, even after many viewings are good fun, and delight the audiences up and down the country. As does Craig Chalmers who, as you are well aware, was one of the finalists in BBCTVs search for Joseph ,Any Dream Will Do.He has been filling theatres for over 18 months,even with various changes of cast.I have been a number of times as, it is obvious from the audience numbers,have many other. He plays the part of Joseph perfectly,and it says more about the critic that the only fault of him is your perception of how he looks.