Review: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Edinburgh Playhouse

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Born, professionally speaking, in Edinburgh back in 1972, it’s safe to say that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Time Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, will enjoy a joyous welcome back from local audiences all December long.

The Biblical story of Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob and Rachel, survivor of attempted fratricide, one-time slave, and eventual Vizier of Egypt, made a fine basis for a musical five decades ago, and time has been very kind. The score, inescapable in many a school music room, remains a supremely catchy piece of pop-musical genius. An overtly family-friendly, wholesome adventure, it has even avoided the steely talons of evolving political correctness.

However, with so many of us, including yours truly having belted out ‘Any Dream Will Do’ on a school stage (yes I was extremely cool in school), why pay to see the London Palladium’s newest production? Quite simply, because they are much, much better at it – and they’ve bought Donny Osmond to Edinburgh for the month to open Act 2 with a hip-gyrating, impassioned scream-generating Elvis Pharoah – in a gold kilt.

There’s big-name casting, and there’s big-name casting. Returning pop legend Osmond – amongst the most famous Josephs of all time – to the show for Christmas is simply…phenomenal. He also has the vocal range, and at 67, the energy and star power, to deliver a monumentally cracking ‘Song of the King’.

However, he’s not the only star on stage and Adam Filipe, one of the rising variety, has the charm and powerful pop-tenor vocals to make a memorable Joseph of his own. His thrilling take on ‘Close Every Door’ is sure to raise to tingle spines every time.

Yet, fantastic as the boys are, any production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat relies on its Narrator to open the show and hold it together. In the absence of headliner Christina Bianco, understudy Charley Warburton stepped into the svelt black pantsuit on press night and blew the audience away. She has the versatile, powerful vocals, and light feet needed for the role’s huge song and dance demands plus oodles of charisma, all laced with a Teesside accent. Such super-powered charm marks her as a talent to watch.

About these excellent leads, Director Laurence Connor conjures a delightful, well-paced, and entertaining story, whilst sound designer Gareth Owen dials the beautifully balanced sound to 11. The cast sounds amazing, as does the formidable orchestra under the exuberant Dr. John Rigby. All of this is wrapped in Morgan Large’s ‘luxury panto’ world of fake beards and golden chariots, beautifully lit by Ben Cracknell and choreographed with extravagant style by Joann M. Hunter.

The result is nothing less than an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza from start to finish, blessed with an expansive, and immensely talented company of singer-dancers of voting age and primary-school vintages.

Connor even makes sense of the show’s relentless positivity by cleverly expanding the role of young performers throughout. The result is a sense of the show as Bible-story playtime inspired by the narrator’s storytelling. Thanks to elasticated beards and petit costume sizes, the kids imagine themselves into all sorts of ‘adult’ roles with absurdly funny, but cute consequences, be it one of Joseph’s murderous siblings, a rich slave-owner complete with wife troubles, or even a sacrificial goat.

That isn’t to say the show doesn’t acknowledge Joseph’s flirtations with disaster. His time beneath the slaver’s whip comes with a whipcrack – even if the slave trader is about 8 years old – whilst Filipe channels lamb to the slaughter after catching the eye of his master’s libidinous wife. Eventually cast into jail, the stage in shadows, our golden boy is left to opine his incarcerated condition in plaintive style, even if moments later the Act 1 finale erupts into ‘Go, Go, Joseph’ leaving the audience ready to high-kick it to the bar.

Lloyd-Webber and Rice could have injected a bit more pathos into Joseph’s story, but after Jesus Christ Superstar, the well of dramatic sadness was probably running dry. However, if you need your upbeat musical dramas with more heft, you can probably lop off a star from the rating above.

I, for one, can live with a beautifully produced show, out to entertain at any cost. From the opening strains of ‘Any Dream Will Do’ to the final, full-powered mini-concert ‘Joseph Megamix’, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a joy to experience.

Featured Image: Donny Osmond as Pharaoh and Adam Filipe as Joseph © Tristram Kenton

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will play the Edinburgh Playhouse until the 29th of December 2024. For tickets and information, click here.

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