Go, Go, Go, Joseph

Last weekend was Jen's birthday present from me - we met up in London for the weekend and saw three shows: Joseph on Friday night, Spamalot on Saturday afternoon and Hairspray on Saturday night.

I arrived in London about half an hour before Jen did, so I had just enough time to get to the hotel and check in before walking up to Leicester Square tube station to meet her. We had a quick meal at Bella Italia and walked over to the Adelphi theatre. When we were at school we had both been involved in a production of Joseph, and even 20 years later (yes, something else I just realised was 20 years ago already) I found that I could remember most of the words - including all the colours of the dreamcoat ;). This actually turned out to be quite a good thing for me, because in my opinion the orchestra was a bit too loud for the singers and the words were lost in places. This was particularly obvious in the second half when Pharaoh sang a song that wasn't in the original show, so I didn't know the words, and I barely caught any of them. I thought that was a real shame, particularly for the people in the audience who hadn't played Naphtali, one of the twelve brothers, in a school production (there weren't enough boys...) and didn't already know the words, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves anyway.

Joseph was played by Lee Mead, who got the part through 'Any Dream Will Do', one of those awful 'reality TV' talent shows that seem to have permeated every echelon of society. I absolutely despise those shows - anything that involves people being eliminated or call-in phone numbers for people to vote does not go down well with me - and I felt that I was paying a premium for the tickets because the 'People's Joseph' was in it, so I would love to be able to say that he was only OK in the role, but in all honesty he was very good indeed (and of course, if I had wanted to protest my disgust at TV talent shows, I could always have boycotted Joseph and booked tickets for something else entirely, but the truth was I was looking forward to hearing all the songs again). But my favourite people in the show were the 30 or so school kids who sat at each side of the stage and sang all the chorus parts. The set was great - it looked a bit like a giant picture frame tilted slightly backwards. I would definitely recommend the show - although if you're not bothered for seeing Lee Mead, wait until he's finished his run and they have a less famous actor in the role; the ticket prices will probably go down...