Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1999)

I was fairly young the first time I saw this filmed special, maybe back around the time it first came out, and I liked it a lot back then. As such, I’m glad The Shows Must Go On replayed it, because it was one that I missed when they showed it at the start of the lockdown and it was nice to revisit it.

A musical rendition of the biblical story. Joseph is his father’s favorite son, which puts him in the crosshairs of his eleven brothers. When, in a fit of envy, they throw him into a pit and then sell him into slavery (Joseph’s brothers don’t mess around,) God helps him survive his new circumstances through his gift: the ability to interpret dreams.

It needs to be said that this is an incredibly-cheesy rendition of a moderately-cheesy musical, and I don’t just mean Donny Osmond’s performance as Joseph. A number of the songs are very winking and most of the actors are mugging for all they’re worth. A few years ago, I saw a fantastic regional production of Joseph that admittedly blows this filmed version out of the water, but even if the cheese factor is even hammier than I remember, I enjoy it for the nostalgia aspect.

This isn’t one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best-known scores, but I like it. “Any Dream Will Do” is a solid Lloyd Webber ballad, and I like the early Narrator-led numbers like “Jacob and Sons” and “Joseph’s Coat.” The score plays around a lot with a variety of genres cranked up to eleven, and while most of these are very hokey, they can be fun – the Elvis-themed “Pharaoh’s Song” is a crowdpleaser. (Side note: in that regional production I saw, Pharaoh was actually played by a Black man in drag who performed the song as a Diana Ross-style number. Awesome.)

The best part about this production is probably Maria Friedman as the Narrator. Her singing is fantastic, and she brings a lot of snap and personality to the proceedings as practically the only woman onscreen apart from scantily-clad ensemble members (part of the trouble with musicals based on Bible stories.) As Joseph, Donny Osmond of course sings well, but his acting? Eh. He’s earnest, I’ll give him that. Seeing the film again all these years later, I picked up on some extra familiar faces: Ian McNeice (Doctor Who’s Winston Churchill) as Potiphar, Alex Jennings (David on The Crown) as Pharaoh’s butler, and Robert Torti (Jesus in Reefer Madness) as Pharaoh – Torti must specialize in doing biblically-based rock-star numbers in musicals, hehe.

Finally, it’s hardly a surprise, but this movie features a ton of white people playing Egyptian characters (I mean, Ian McNeice, possibly the whitest guy, as Potiphar.) White actors playing Egyptians, especially in adaptations of Bible stories, are still rampant today, so of course this hokey filmed musical from 1999 wasn’t going to pay attention to that kind of thing. At the bare minimum, they do have Judah, the brother who sings “Benjamin Calypso” (complete with a thick Caribbean accent,) played by a Black actor, but that’s about it.

Warnings

Some suggestiveness/brief sexual content, scenes of violence, drinking, and thematic elements.

Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Royal Albert Hall Celebration! (1999)

 

This free Andrew Lloyd-Webber YouTube offering, a tribute concert for the composer’s 50^th birthday filmed over 20 years ago, makes an interesting contrast with the more recent Sondheim birthday concert filmed remotely during the pandemic. This is much more “the typical thing,” although it still features some unique differences from the average tribute concert.

 

It might not be fair to compare this concert to the recent Sondheim one, but since I saw them about a week apart, comparisons are inevitable. This, as expected, is much more lavish, with a big ensemble, fancy outfits, and a devoted audience. While things aren’t super staged, there are a few group numbers that are more choreographed and the Starlight Express sequence of course features chorus members on roller skates. But in turn, it’s also less intimate, less personal. The songs are trotted out one after the other with little meditation on what they mean for the people performing them. This, the usual type of birthday concert, is maybe more impressive, but the stripped-down Sondheim one certainly comes across as more heartfelt.

 

But as I said, this concert is also a bit different from the norm. For starters, performances are mostly grouped by show – there’s an Evita sequence, a Jesus Christ Superstar sequence, and so on. For the most part, the same performers sing the same roles throughout the entire sequence. For instance, there’s a grouping of several Phantom numbers, and in them, Sarah Brightman sings Christine, Antonio Banderas the Phantom, and Michael Ball Raoul. This creates a bit more of a throughline within each sequence. Also, there’s a comparatively small list of big performers – a large ensemble, like I said (plus a choir of kids during the Joseph sequence,) but there are probably fewer than a dozen big names appearing in the show, with most of them popping up multiple times. Elaine Paige, for example, sings the title role in the Evita sequence and returns later to do “Memory” from Cats.

 

The big emphasis here is on familiar actors in familiar roles. Quite a few of the performers previously starred in the roles they’re singing here, either onstage or, in the case of Antonio Banderas as Che in the Evita sequence, in a movie. There’s Donny Osmond with Joseph, Glenn Close with Sunset Boulevard, Michael Ball with Phantom and Aspects of Love, and so on. I’m a little mixed on this. Obviously, it’s great to see someone performing a song they made famous (to return to the Sondheim concert, did I fangirl out when Mandy Patinkin sang Sunday in the Park with George or Chip Zien sang Into the Woods? Of course I did.) But it’s also amazing to hear some of your favorite performers doing famous songs you’ve never heard them do before, from roles they’ve never played (another Sondheim example – I didn’t know how much I needed Lea Salonga singing “Loving You” from Passion in my life.) Here, there are few surprises.

I know it sounds like I’m being very down on this concert, and when I inevitably compare it to the Sondheim show, it’s not going to hold up as well. What’s more, I’m a much bigger fan of Sondheim than I am of Lloyd-Webber and am much more familiar with most of the performers from than show compared to this one. So that’s probably a little unfair. That said, it is still a good concert. It’s fun, with some great singing, nice performances, and a lot of delightfully late-‘90s fashions.