Carry On Canaan

Andrew the Alchemist. For millennia men have sought the Philosopher’s Stone. Even Sir Isaac Newton. The search is over, Andrew, Lord Lloyd-Webber has found it. He has uncovered the ancient secret of how to turn base metal into gold. Despite leaden music and leaden lyrics, a tireless, talented cast of whom the phenomenon that is Lee Mead shines brightest, turn Lord Webber and Tim Rice’s base material of Joseph into a kind of gold. Certainly box-office gold. Theatrical gold is less sure. The show certainly glitters. Endlessly. The obviously sincere, extraordinarily energetic and unified cast, including the 30-strong very young chorus, at times almost convince you that it is the true glint of theatrical sun on the genuinely precious metal that is generating the uniformly ecstatic response of the audiences every sold-out night.

The Lee Mead phenomenon accounts for much of this. With his dark gypsy-next-door looks, strong, clear voice and immensely likeable stage presence, he commands the stage, the show, and it seems the audience. All ages, both genders. One feels that if somewhere within the Adelphi’s ageing walls a couple of theatrical rats meet up they will probably high-five each other with ‘go Lee’. TGO or ‘The Gorgeous One’ as the mushrooming web sites sometimes call him, seems to be riding a tsunami rather than a mere transient wave of popularity. After all he’s ‘our star’. Week in, week out on the BBC, we stood by him (yes, me too) and eventually made him the Joseph he is – right? He’s our boy. We made his dream, not just any dream, come true. We’re part of his triumph. We won. So luvly Lee now carries our dreams, our fantasies on stage with him every night. And it all feels so right because he has the talent to make us feel good about our judgement in choosing him.

Yet all those weeks when Denise Van Outen, the guy who’s always grinning, nice guy Bill Kenright and the singing coach lady were announcing their judgements with all the solemnity of electing a new General Secretary of the United Nations, no one told Lee Mead the truth. He is more than up to the part of Joseph; it’s the show that isn’t up to him. The stupefying banality of Lord Webber’s music is perfectly matched by these early Tim Rice lyrics. At least Tim’s lyrics improved immeasurably over the years. Shame about the music.

I have a broad sense of humour, enjoy good trash with the next man, can hum a catchy tune with pleasure but this weird meretricious hotch potch of randomly and incoherently cobbled together musical styles baffles reason and certainly defies any form of rational appraisal. The clues can be found in Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s comments each week on the BBC pick-a-Joseph show. Sycophantically deferred to like a musical Solomon, we soon discovered that the Good Lord as he was perhaps only half-jokingly called, has an implacably literal mind. He seems to be an imagination-free zone. So we heard advice equivalent to - if there’s a ‘star’ in the song, point to the sky; if a ‘heart’ clutch your breast etc etc. Lord Webber seems a perfectly nice bloke whose mind like his music, simply doesn’t resonate. It plays like a one-fingered melody picked out on a piano. And just occasionally that produces a catchy tune, upon a surprisingly few of which a worldwide, immediately recognisable Musical Theatre Brand has been constructed. The BBC pick-a-Joseph show, together with the pick-a-nun Sound of Music show that preceded it, shows beyond a doubt that Andrew Lloyd-Webber has genius. As a publicist.

The set, costumes and production of Joseph are all as one-note, one-level gor-blimey literal as the songs. Jacob, sons, Jo’s multi-coloured coat, so - multi-coloured stuffed sheep on the revolve. Jacob’s got many wives so let’s stick a (Singer?) sewing machine on the head of one, and other wifely duty objects on the others. I will draw a veil over the singing stuffed camel (sounding a bit like Tom Waits before his first fag and cup of coffee in the morning) and the sibilant singing snake. No I am not making this up. Egypt; now how can we suggest that? Er, um. You got it, little model pyramids, Sphinx etc revolve in and out again just so we know. Costumes are as eccentric as the rest; from the stripper’s Burka to as series of surreal upside-down lampshades on some dancers’ heads that hint at a new race of Egypto-Aztecian-Woolworthian people.

I’ve seen two previous productions of Joseph over the years. Its best qualities were always its youthful innocence and charm. So this production, and this really isn’t meant to be personal, showing all the signs of heavy AL-W influence, manages to be charmless, bewilderingly knowing, and with even the youthfulness consigned to the ever-present, largely irrelevant chorus. However endearing the kids are. And they are. I can see the sense and the theatrical mileage to be gained from an Elvis Pharaoh; even a calypso revelation of Joseph’s Egyptian identity though a curious mixture of tone; a country-and-western ‘New Angel In Heaven’ gets a bit marginal but when this yukky-worded jingle of a song reprises with Jacob and his sons all speaking and singing in cod French accents words fail me. There is only one remotely rational explanation for this farcical sequence – that nothing amuses the English more than the silly noises those Froggies make when they try to talk English. If you think that sounds a bit racist – don’t even go there: or to the caricatured French you can add stereotypical Jews, Arabs, Egyptians and thanks to the Pharaoh Elvis and Home-On-The-Range Hebrew shepherds, I guess Yanks as well. No of course it’s not racist, it’s too ludicrous to be taken seriously. And by the way, why Cat Stevens has never taken A L-W to court over ‘Jacob and Sons’ apparent pastiche of his ‘Matthew and Son’ I don’t know.

I hear it: c’mon you just don’t get it; It’s meant to be fun; lighten up and join the (coach) party. With a wife and daughter who love the show almost as much as they love Luvly Lee, I so wish I could. But this Carry-on-Canaan, camped up, cynically targetted mish-mash leaves me cold. Apart from the heartening joie-de-vivre of the whole cast, and the gleam of 22 carat gold star that is the talented, irresistibly likeable, charismatic Lee Mead.

So the ancient alchemists can after all rest easy in their graves. Their obsessive search has not been completed. For in the end Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t create gold at all – he just uncovered some in the form of a tousle-haired young heart-throb (beat your chest Lee) from Essex.


<Added>

It's a pity I can't edit the original slightly. But for sake of accuracy, the cod French accents are during 'Canaan Days' an instantly forgettable song which perhaps excuses me for forgetting it. 'One More Angel In Heaven' plink-a-plonks its way back at several points in different musical styles. But its still yukky.

Z