Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Lyrics by Tim Rice

Music by Andrew Lloyd webber

Lyrics by Bob Crewe

Director Laurence Connor

Capitol Theatre Sydney

Reviewed by Ron Lee, CSP

If massive amounts of colour and movement are still not enough for you in your musicals, look no further.

From Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the team that brought you Jesus Christ Superstar, comes Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which was created before JCS.

According to the Bible Old Testament story, Joseph was one of Jacob's 12 sons. His father loved him more than any of the others and gave him a coloured cloak. His brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery. He was taken to Egypt and eventually became steward to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials. Potiphar's wife tried unsuccessfully to seduce him and after false accusations were levelled at Joseph he was imprisoned. Due to his ability to interpret Pharaoh's dream he was made governor of Egypt.

The musical doesn’t strictly adhere to the Bible story. There is some theatrical licence. Not sure that the Can-Can traveled from France to ancient Egypt and maybe the Egyptians at that time didn’t have London Taps on their sandals, but who can resist a good tap-dance in a musical?

In the title role is Euan Fistrovic Doidge who has a pleasant stage presence without being overpowering and is perfect for the role. Taking us through in dialogue and song is Paulini as the Narrator.

The eleven-piece band sounds bigger than it is. There’s a multitude children and they’re all talented. There are no annoying chipmunk voices in this production.

The best known song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is usually Any Dream Will Do, but in this production Pharaoh not only steals the show, he takes it to Las Vegas, rebrands it to suit himself and puts other parts of the show in the background. Trevor Ashley couldn’t have organised a bigger entrance. Every actor on the planet would love to have one like that at least once in their career. Also, I suspect that Ashley had an arrangement with the sound engineer where the volume on his microphone is turned up much higher than everyone else’s.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an all-singing, all-dancing colourful spectacular. There’s so much great theatre in Sydney at the moment and you’d do well to put this one on your list.