New Theatre Cardiff

Thurs 3 Nov

words: ANGHARAD BROWN

★★★

The songs from Joseph take me back to being six years old in my first school production: we sang along to the mega-famous musical’s songs out of time and out of key, while our parents obviously had to pretend we were brilliant. But since then I’ve always been incredibly fond of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and I’ve been known to belt out a tune on more than one occasion. Just ask my husband.

In fact, I was convinced that when I asked my other half to come with me to see Joseph the answer would be negative. Alas my years of singing Any Dream Will Do obviously paid off as he agreed to come with me. For the third night of a two-week stint at The New Theatre, there was a healthy crowd, mainly made up of families and the grey-haired brigade. It was announced that the part of narrator for this performance was to be played by Anouska Eaton, who in my eyes pretty much stole the show with her powerful voice. Don’t get me wrong, Keith Jack was great as Joseph but something about his pronunciation of words within the songs started to grate on me after awhile.  But from start to finish the energy on the stage was incredible and the singing and dancing was faultless.

Yes, I know as an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’d be incredibly surprised if you couldn’t hum at least one line of a song from Joseph or hadn’t been forced to go and see it with the family at least once in your lifetime. It’s cheesy, it has a choir of children on stage throughout the performance, it’s incredibly camp and that’s pretty much why I love it. It must’ve been a hit with my husband too, as this morning in the shower he was singing away to Go, Go, Go Joseph at full volume whilst using a flannel as a loincloth. It’s on until Sun 13 Nov so you’ve got plenty of time to catch it.