Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Coat

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s first commercial hit, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat is an unusual mix of musical styles with parodies of French ballads, an Elvis impersonation, calypso , Jazz and  country and western around a biblical story in a school setting. Its most famous songs have become familiar to audiences from its frequent productions ever since the Seventies and it remains a fun accessible and entertaining show. Famously the iconic list of colours in “Joseph’s Coat” were added by the school children in its first performance. 

The Director of EBOS’s production had a clear idea of how to present this tale and there was a wonderful unity of vision with the staging, lighting and choreography to create a very good looking and exceptionally well sung version of the show. The integration of the children’s Ensemble, youth cast, dancers, and female chorus with the twelve brothers and Principals was very effective with a perfect central role for the Narrator to drive the story telling. In “Pharoah’s song” opening Act 2, the Narrator sings, “ Could become a star”, there was no could about it, EBOS ‘s Narrator is a star. 

There was a very big cast of fifty-five and the use of multiple levels across the stage and projected back cloth images created some very good pictures to set each song. The band of twelve was perfectly blended with the on-stage voices to do full justice to the joyous fun score . The choreography reflected the different musical styles and gave it all a fresh lively and upbeat feel that made for a very enjoyable two hours.

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