On Tuesday the 6
First up I just have to talk about Jac Yarrow who played Joseph, WOW! What a bright future he has ahead of him! He was incredible! Truly incredible! Jac is currently 21 and in his final year at ArtsEd (an Arts school in London). Yup, you read that right, he’s still in school. This is his West End Debut role but I can see him having a long career ahead! Although this is his West End debut he has performed as Jack Kelly in Newsies and was the ensemble of Once On This Island – both at his drama school.
Jac was an amazing Joseph, he had amazing vocals which were showcased in the song Close Every Door (to me), the song Joseph sings near the end of act 1 when he’s in prison; it seemed like there was such emotion and meaning behind each word. As I said his vocals were incredible, during the climax of that song I knew that he was a star. Not only did he have a great voice, but he was also a fantastic dancer! Whenever he had any dancing moments your eyes were drawn to him. He moved like he was having the best time up on that stage, performing. He really was the perfect Joseph.
I could see him being cast in future roles such as : Raoul (Phantom of the Opera), Evan Hansen (Dear Evan Hansen), Jamie (Last 5 Years) which would showcase his vocals yet also Sky (Mamma Mia), Burt (Mary Poppins) and Arthur Kipps (Half a Sixpence) which would also showcase his dancing skills.
I think it’s clear I loved Jac as Joseph…He is a triple threat, excelling in all the MT categories (singing, dancing and acting) and he seemed truly humbled by the experience of being Joseph. Definitely, a name to look out for in the future! There were a lot of people waiting at the stage door to see him and he spent a lot of time happily signing programmes.
Moving on to Sheridan Smith and Jason Donovan…
Firstly Sheridan Smith who was the Narrator in 75% of the performance but also plays Jacob (Josephs dad) and Potiphar’s wife. Now when she wasn’t messing around playing up for laughs I thought she did a really good job and had a great voice (I adore the London cast recording of Legally Blonde in which she plays the main role, Elle Woods), but in the moments where she was clearly playing for laughs and doing a few different accents, I thought that it was pantomime-ish which was a shame.
Whilst she was a fairly good narrator, I don’t get why they couldn’t have cast two other people for the roles of Potiphar’s wife and Jacob?
Next up is Jason Donovan who played Joseph in the 1991 version of the musical is now playing the Elvis-like Pharaoh who hires Joseph to uncover what his dreams mean. Whilst it was nice that they invited Jason back to be in the musical, I’m not sure what I thought of his Pharaoh. Both times when he started singing I found his vocals to be on the flat side! Also I’m not sure if I was just a bit tired or whether there was an issue with the microphones but I couldn’t always hear what he was singing properly; thankfully I do know the story and songs so didn’t miss out on too much but if it was your first time seeing Joseph and you haven’t listened to the music I could imagine it being a bit hard to follow. It was a fun element of the show and he didn’t take his role too seriously.
Sets
I loved the set for this musical. It was so simple yet vibrant and colourful; mostly just set up to look like sand dunes but with a big orange lit up sun in the background. In moments like Joseph’s coat, the ensemble had big layers of coloured patterned rugs that got strung up which again was simple yet effective. The most intricate set was the Pharaoh’s palace set which involved a gold background full of hieroglyphs which included symbols of ALW’s other work (look out for the Phantom mask and music notes). It also had two massive statues of the Egyptian gods Anubis (A dog creature) and Horus (an Falcon). During the
Stand Out Moments
Whilst I enjoyed the show overall I did have some standout moments such as Close Every Door (spoken about above), Joseph’s Coat which was fun and vibrant, Go Go Joseph which is the act 1 closer which like Joseph’s Coat is upbeat and energetic. I loved the ensemble dancing in this musical especially the tap dance and can-can numbers. Then I can’t talk about favourite numbers without mentioning the mega-mix at the end of the musical – who doesn’t love a megamix?
Seats
We had great tickets for this show! We were front row of the Royal Circle seats 37&38, they were
Overall Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this musical! It was fun, upbeat and colourful! It was 100% better than expected, I’ll have to admit after reading some bad reviews I was scared to see what a few people had called the Sheridan Smith Show but whilst Sheridan was there she didn’t take the limelight away from Jac at all. He was the true star of the show. It was perfect for them to bring this musical back for summer! It’s linked with Mamma Mia in summer shows for me, as it’s summer it means that families can take their kids to go and see it! If you’re a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber or just musicals in general, I would 100% recommend grabbing tickets whilst you still can before it closes on September 8th.
If you want to buy a recording of the show to listen to you can do so here;
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