Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat At Opera House, Winter Gardens, Blackpool Review
TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW.
Reviewed by Lucy Gwilliam
I think everyone on the planet has heard of the multi award winning musical theatre production Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The long running show has come to Blackpool for one week only with an amazing cast and a fabulous brand-new production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a musical production that I grew up knowing and loving the songs to but had never actually had to opportunity to see it live. I had always wanted to see it, so I was extremely pleased to see that it is showing from 25th July to 30th July with 8 performances at Opera House, Winter Gardens, Blackpool. I have never been to the Opera House in Blackpool before, but it was easy to find and is such a beautiful building with local parking close by. Tickets range from £20.50 to £48.25, which I find to be a very excellent price for a superb, well-known show.
Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat is based upon the story of Joseph from the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Joseph is a young dreamer, and the story begins with the narrator telling a group of children the story of Joseph. He was born into a family of twelve boys, and was his father, Jacobs’s favourite son. Jacob gifts Joseph the Technicolor Dreamcoat, much to the dismay and jealously of his brothers. They plot against him and send him off to be a slave in Egypt. Here he is enslaved by the young Pharoah, who Joseph fully respects and enjoys working for but the Pharaoh’s wife tries to seduce Joseph. The Pharoah finds out and banishes Joseph to a prison cell.
In the meantime, the Pharoah begins to have unusual dreams of the future of Egypt and the only person who can interpret the dreams is Joseph. He explains to the Pharoah that there will be seven years of bounty will be followed by seven years of famine, and Pharaoh is so amazed that he appoints Joseph to a post in the government. When the Famine hits, Joseph’s brothers are in Israel and are not prepared so they decide to travel to Egypt as they have heard of their great food stores there.
When they arrive, Joseph recognises them, although they do not recognise him. He tests their loyalty to each other by hiding his golden cup in one their food bags. When it is found by the guards, the other brothers stood up for their brother who was accused and asked them to take them as prisoner instead. Joseph sees that his brothers have changed and asks them to join him in Egypt to be a family again.
Even though I had heard lots about this production, I had never really known what it was about. I knew that Jason Donovan had originally played Joseph and he was now undertaking the Role of The Pharoah. This was exciting as we have seen him perform in other musicals so were pleased to see him perform again. He had an amazing reception from the audience and put on a fantastic show!
The role of Joseph was played by Jac Yarrow, who was absolutely brilliant in the role and had us all in awe of his talent. Linzi Hateley took on the role of the Narrator and in my opinion carried the whole show with her fantastic stage presence and witty charm. I didn’t realise how many young children would be involved in the show and was really taken back by how professional and talented they were. The group of them were phenomenal and made the experience feel magical. My favourite element from the show was watching the dancers work their magic and sing in unison. They were just breath-taking – from their costumes to performance, it was just completely enchanting.
In my opinion of the show, I did find it a little hard to follow without background knowledge of the storyline beforehand. I found that because the singing and music was so loud, this made it a little confusing to follow without the help of spoken scenes. However, it was a fantastic and absolutely bonkers show that could be enjoyed by the whole family. I really enjoyed it and found the whole thing enthralling.
Rating: I would rate the show 4.5/5.