Because it's not up online yet and because I love you all
Lee finds his dream with a giant leap from talent show to stardom
Charles Spencer - The Daily Telegraph
I suppose one ought to be sternly disapproving about this revival of Joseph.
The West End is already too full of musicals, the show only recently ended its last run in London, and the BBC has generously given the enterprise many million pounds worth of free publicity with its talent show ADWD. And stone me, who won that contest? The seasoned pro, Lee Mead.
Yet I have to admit to voting for Lee myself and to experiencing a sugar rush of pure pleasure at last night's exuberant premiere when I found myself in the same row as the losing contestants on ADWD. The generous enthusiasm with which they whooped and applauded Lee at the end was touching to behold.
It was a night of high drama. Half an hour in, proceedings had to be halted when a stage revolve got stuck. Fortunately it was fixed within minutes, and as Lee was hoisted high into the air on a terrifying piece of machinery to wild ovations during the grand finale, there was no doubt that the former understudy had proved himself a West End star.
What Lee Mead has in spades is charm, crucial in a role that could easily seem unattractively priggish. He also looks good in a loin cloth, and has a powerful and expressive voice, heard to particularly fine effect on the dramatic Close Every Door - as close as this ridiculously effervescent show gets to the serious.
By the end, however, his vocals were beginning to sound a touch frayed and he and the management need to take care he doesn't overstrain his greatest asset like Connie Fisher in TSOM.
Both Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice have gone on to bigger things than Joseph, together and apart, but this early piece, first heard in 1969 as a half-hour entertainment at Colet Court prep school and then expanded over the years, has an irresistible bloom of youth about it.
There is an exhilarating prodigality of memorable tunes, with Lloyd Webber ranging from pure pop to classic rock, and from French chanson to Trinidadian calypso via country and western.
What you hear is a composes delightedly discovering his gift for melody, And Tim Rice, who came up with the improbably idea of turning a Bible story into a musical is at his witty best, coining couplet Cole Porter might have smiled upon. I especially like Joseph's interpretation of Pharoah's dream: "All these things you say in your pyjamas/ are a long range forecast for your farmers."
Nichola Traherne has revived the late and sorely missed Steven Pimlott's 1991 Palladium production with terrific brio and the energy level never flags. With a chorus of cute kiddies, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, dance routines that move from the sexily energetic to the physically daring by Anthony Van Laast, and the stunning turn from Dean Collinson as the Elvis-like Pharaoh, Joseph looks like being a sure-fire hit all over again.
