Joseph on the West End Stage

As the first musical I ever saw at around six years old, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat holds a special place in my heart. The fun loving musical is so bright that you can’t help but sing along, or indeed stop yourself from tapping your foot. With just a little bit of cheese, this popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical never fails to sell out theatres across the world. Performed hundreds of thousands of times since its inception in 1969, it has had multiple runs on both the West End and Broadway in addition to international tours in almost 100 counties.

More commonly referred to as simply ‘Joseph’, a large part of this shows popularity lies in its astounding ability to be performed practically anywhere. From amateur school productions to the pinnacle of prime time television and of course the West End stage, there is something about Joseph which makes it just as at home on a large stage as it is in the back of a community hall.

The show follows the story of a dream interpreter called Joseph, from the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Completely sung through, there is little to no spoken dialogue in the show. When a show is like this, I think it is more important than ever that all of the performers are able to enunciate well as the story is being explained through song, which if you are not familiar with the story, could prove difficult to understand, especially in more complex musicals. *Cats, I am looking at you*.

Something of a daddy’s boy, Joseph is one of 12 children and is sold by his jealous brothers into slavery. He gets into the good books of Ancient Egyptian noble Potiphar, but later ends up in jail after refusing to sleep with his master’s wife. Whilst in jail, his ability to read dreams gets the attention of the Pharaoh, who demands Joseph be let out of jail to become his wing man.

First opening in the West End in 1973, the show has seen a plethora of revivals on both the London and New York stages. This production saw great reviews across the board for all of the cast, selling out of tickets several weeks before the final show. I got tickets about six weeks before I saw it, and shy of wanting to spend £150 on a ticket, I had to pick a midweek performance in the shows last week on stage. Needless to say I would have literally purchased standing tickets if I had needed to, as it has been a good ten years since I had last seen a production of Joseph and I had yet to see it on the West End at all.

The show itself was simply brilliant. A whimsical, upbeat and fun family musical that you come away humming the tune to if you haven’t seen it before, or with song lyrics stuck in your head if you have seen it before. In the 2019 production, West End princess Sheridan Smith completely stole the show in the role of the narrator. Rather bizarrely, she also played a series of smaller roles in the show too, including Potiphar’s wife and Joseph’s dad.  Jac Yarrow played Joseph in last summer’s production, with Jason Donovan, a once famed Joseph himself, in the role of Pharaoh.

The show was due back onto the same stage this summer for another limited run, with both Jac and Jason ready to reprise their roles. However, due to the virus the show has been pushed back to summer 2021, which feels like a lifetime away, but leaves a little extra time to pick up some tickets.

Have you ever seen Joseph on the stage? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments below.