REVIEW: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Sheffield Lyceum

I was a teenager, Neighbours was compulsory after-school viewing, and Jason flew! from the gods! in a loincloth!

Fast forward several centuries and I’ve seen it countless times since (my 1991 original cast recording cassette long worn out from too many spins through the Alba hifi).

I saw it back in London with Lee Mead from Any Dream Will Do, up north for numerous, varyingly memorable, touring productions and, this week, at the Lyceum, starring X Factor alumnus Joe McElderry as the Pharaoh, camping it up as the King like Elvis at a Vegas wedding, returning to the show in which he played the title role 10 years ago.

For anyone who has seen multiple versions of any much-loved production, the temptation to compare is unavoidable.

So whilst this interpretation is fundamentally the same as all the Josephs you’ve seen before, there are tweaks… and for the purists they take a bit of getting used to.

Children make up more of the cast than ever before, stepping out of their traditional spot (harmonising in the wings) to take on some quite major parts: four of the 11 brothers are played by child actors in Converse trainers and elasticated beards, the imprisoned cook and butler are, again, played by children, and Egyptian millionaire Potiphar is, disappointingly, also acted by one of the boys.

Back in 1968, when Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber first composed the show, it was for 300 school pupils to perform as an end-of-term concert – and this show consciously takes it back to its roots, with all those school production vibes.

Everything feels very much like the finale of Nativity! the Martin Freeman movie – there’s a naive charm to the cast of children, and a new stage set of primary colours, stars suspended from the sky and, for the first time, a video screen, displaying the ochre heat of a baking Egyptian sun, is deceptively simple and impactful.

The Narrator – brilliant New Yorker Christina Bianco, a pocket-rocket powerhouse with crystal-clear diction, who made her name as an impressionist – works overtime playing not just her own traditional role but that of patriarch Jacob (another elasticated beard) and Potiphar’s wife, in a cougar-like turn that brings to mind Joan Collins in the Donny Osmond version of the show. It’s clever, and Bianco is excellent, but young children in the audience might be confused.

Actor Adam Filipe has the main role of Joseph – though on Press night in Sheffield the part was played by understudy Davide Fienauri, who was incredible. His heart-rending jail solo Close Every Door deserved every minute of its much-extended applause.

McElderry is the main draw, but then so is nostalgia – everyone in the audience has seen Joseph before, and most are bringing along their own children to pass on the baton.

New, longer, sections of choreography pad out the show as never before – there’s a tap dance number, an American football cheerleading routine, and the traditional French-style delivery of Those Canaan Days which morphs somewhat unnecessarily into the can-can – and there’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek irreverence and a few cheeky new asides that just about keep on the right side of send-up.

Go, go, go see it for sure, and be wowed as ever by a high energy, slick and stylish treat straight from the West End, with all the genius lyrics and melodies you love – but be prepared for change. And don’t pin your hopes on a swirling, kaleidoscope cape of colours at the end. There isn’t one.

• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is at the Lyceum until Saturday, July 12