Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Playhouse Theatre Edinburgh 11th December 2024 Review
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is at the Playhouse Theatre Edinburgh until Sunday 29th of December and, if you have not already heard, Donny Osmond is in town and on stage performing the role of Pharaoh.
Joseph is always to me a bit of an odd show as it originally started life as a far shorter production (a 20 minute “pop cantata” in 1968) then expanded slowly to the show that so many of us are familiar with now. The simplicity of the story and, if required, the stage sets have also made it perfect for school productions (and there have been many thousands over the years). Also of course, it is an early work from Tim Rice (lyrics) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and although much of the music is a pastiche of different musical genres, there is still that unmistakable musical and lyrical sound that its two creators were to soon develop into global stage musical success.
This show (as a professional production) always relies on two casting factors – who performs the roles of Joseph and Pharaoh. Often over the years these two roles have been either significant performances in someone’s early career, or played by well-known performers. For this production, Donny Osmond continues his long connection with this show, having previously performed the role of Joseph himself in over 2,000 performances.
For this production, Adam Filipe takes on the role of Joseph and he brings with him the enthusiasm and, where needed, light touch that this role requires. Adam also has the vocal ability to do justice to all of the so well-known songs that his character requires. This must, however, be a bit of an odd role for him to play in this production as, make no doubt, there was only one true star on stage here in the hearts and minds of many of the people in this audience tonight, and that of course is Donny Osmond.
What can you say about Donny Osmond that has not already been said? Here is someone with six decades of life as a performer to his credit, someone who literally has been in the spotlight since childhood, and all of that showed clearly tonight.
It is, I think, fair to say that there were a lot of women of a certain age in the audience tonight and they were all waiting for one moment, for Donny Osmond to come on stage and, when he did, the applause given to him was a really nice moment to be part of. Donny Osmond’s fans have never forgotten him, he has clearly never forgotten them and together they aged together over the years. There was nothing that Pharaoh/Elvis/Donny Osmond could do wrong tonight and the fans got exactly what and who they came to see.
If you are not familiar with the role of Pharaoh in this story, maybe a little word of warning is required as he only has one song. Having said that though, this whole show, including what looked like most of the stage set budget, is focused on this one production number and Donny Osmond is making the most of it in a warm-hearted and at times completely over the top performance. There are moments too when he is just throwing the script away and improvising as required to his audience and it is here that all those years of experience as a singer/stage performer really showed. It genuinely looked like Donny Osmond was enjoying being on stage with his fans as much as they were enjoying being with him too. Stay to the very end of this show though, as Donny Osmond did tonight come back to reprise his song in the encore medley.
The role of the narrator is a vital one in this show and that should have been performed by Christina Bianco. Tonight, however, Charley Warburton was given this task and this role is obviously a big spotlight opportunity for her. Classic stage musical song and dance routines are obviously something that Charley is going to be doing a lot more of on stage in the years to come, but there were moments when that required shift of the narrator from a light to a heavier touch were missing.
With such well-known songs as “Any Dream Will Do” and ”One More Angel In Heaven” plus of course Donny Osmond, this show is pretty much guaranteed to be a festive sell-out at the Playhouse this year.
This really is a show within a show though, and without Donny Osmond to hugely raise the performance levels in his role as Pharaoh this would be just another production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”. The stars given for this show reflect that one person and one production number can sometimes take a show to another level.
If there was one big downside to this show for me it was the really cheap looking false beards that someone decided to put onto the young boys in this show (and some of the girls). They just made those production numbers look a bit ridiculous. The fake beard on Charley when playing Joseph’s father also looked so bad.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Joseph is always to me a bit of an odd show as it originally started life as a far shorter production (a 20 minute “pop cantata” in 1968) then expanded slowly to the show that so many of us are familiar with now. The simplicity of the story and, if required, the stage sets have also made it perfect for school productions (and there have been many thousands over the years). Also of course, it is an early work from Tim Rice (lyrics) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) and although much of the music is a pastiche of different musical genres, there is still that unmistakable musical and lyrical sound that its two creators were to soon develop into global stage musical success.
This show (as a professional production) always relies on two casting factors – who performs the roles of Joseph and Pharaoh. Often over the years these two roles have been either significant performances in someone’s early career, or played by well-known performers. For this production, Donny Osmond continues his long connection with this show, having previously performed the role of Joseph himself in over 2,000 performances.
For this production, Adam Filipe takes on the role of Joseph and he brings with him the enthusiasm and, where needed, light touch that this role requires. Adam also has the vocal ability to do justice to all of the so well-known songs that his character requires. This must, however, be a bit of an odd role for him to play in this production as, make no doubt, there was only one true star on stage here in the hearts and minds of many of the people in this audience tonight, and that of course is Donny Osmond.
What can you say about Donny Osmond that has not already been said? Here is someone with six decades of life as a performer to his credit, someone who literally has been in the spotlight since childhood, and all of that showed clearly tonight.
It is, I think, fair to say that there were a lot of women of a certain age in the audience tonight and they were all waiting for one moment, for Donny Osmond to come on stage and, when he did, the applause given to him was a really nice moment to be part of. Donny Osmond’s fans have never forgotten him, he has clearly never forgotten them and together they aged together over the years. There was nothing that Pharaoh/Elvis/Donny Osmond could do wrong tonight and the fans got exactly what and who they came to see.
If you are not familiar with the role of Pharaoh in this story, maybe a little word of warning is required as he only has one song. Having said that though, this whole show, including what looked like most of the stage set budget, is focused on this one production number and Donny Osmond is making the most of it in a warm-hearted and at times completely over the top performance. There are moments too when he is just throwing the script away and improvising as required to his audience and it is here that all those years of experience as a singer/stage performer really showed. It genuinely looked like Donny Osmond was enjoying being on stage with his fans as much as they were enjoying being with him too. Stay to the very end of this show though, as Donny Osmond did tonight come back to reprise his song in the encore medley.
The role of the narrator is a vital one in this show and that should have been performed by Christina Bianco. Tonight, however, Charley Warburton was given this task and this role is obviously a big spotlight opportunity for her. Classic stage musical song and dance routines are obviously something that Charley is going to be doing a lot more of on stage in the years to come, but there were moments when that required shift of the narrator from a light to a heavier touch were missing.
With such well-known songs as “Any Dream Will Do” and ”One More Angel In Heaven” plus of course Donny Osmond, this show is pretty much guaranteed to be a festive sell-out at the Playhouse this year.
This really is a show within a show though, and without Donny Osmond to hugely raise the performance levels in his role as Pharaoh this would be just another production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”. The stars given for this show reflect that one person and one production number can sometimes take a show to another level.
If there was one big downside to this show for me it was the really cheap looking false beards that someone decided to put onto the young boys in this show (and some of the girls). They just made those production numbers look a bit ridiculous. The fake beard on Charley when playing Joseph’s father also looked so bad.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com