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REVIEW: Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Grand Opera House, York, October 1 to 5

Go-go-go Joseph: Jaymi Hensley in Joseph And The Technicolor Dreamcoat

SUCH is the abiding popularity of this Dream of a show 46 years after its London debut that Bill Kenwright’s touring production can complete a week in York with two shows on Friday and three on Saturday.

Only Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story – raving on yet again next March – rivals the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber biblical musical for returns to the Grand Opera House.

This decade alone, Lee Mead swished Joseph’s multicoloured garment all around him in 2010; Keith Jack in 2012; Joe McElderry in 2016. Now is the turn of Jaymi Hensley, formerly one of the three Js in the pop-up X Factor boy band Union J, but also trained in musical theatre at the BRIT School, the London maker of stars.

Hensley is not the tallest – he is 5ft 8 – and like Any Dream Will Do’s Keith Jack, he plays Joseph the dreamer more as an innocent abroad, albeit with a twinkle in his eye whenever he takes in the audience’s gaze, rather than with the square-jawed, noble muscularity of Lee Mead.

It works well for Hensley in a show that is never shy of playing an old favourite with a knowing campness, especially among Joseph’s team of 11 brothers. Up pops a model of the Eiffel Tower, for example, when they sing the sad chanson Those Canaan Days, berets, Breton stripes, accordion, exaggerated French accents et al. Look out too for the deep-voiced camel cameo and the blow-up sheep that appear as if from nowhere.

Away from the harmony strictures of a boy band, Hensley sings like a dream, with power, drama, sweetness, range, whatever is demanded, and Any Dream Will Do and especially Close Every Door wholly suit him.

Alexandra Doar’s busy, busy Narrator and Amber Kennedy’s Tina Turner-style Mrs Potiphar are in good form too, while Andrew Geater’s Las Vegas Elvis pastiche for Pharaoh’s Song Of The KIng is a whole hunk of burning love. What’s more, since the 2007 London production, Pharaoh is given a second song, King Of My Heart, to show off another (crooning) side of Elvis’s singing. Thank you very much.

What’s new for 2019, Jaymi Hensley aside? Pop choreographer Gary Lloyd has come on board to pump up the dancing to dynamic effect. Meanwhile, of York interest, the show’s designer is Sean Cavanagh, artistic associate of Riding Lights, whose Friargate Theatre home he designed in 2000. Egypt looks a picture: one more reason to go, go, go to Joseph.

Review copyright of The Press, York

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REVIEW: Monster Makers, Pick Me Up Theatre

Picture by Matthew Kitchen of Pick Me Up Theatre's Monster Makers

SHOCK! HORROR! Darren Lumby left, Alan Park, Emma Louise Dickinson, Tony Froud and Andrew Isherwood in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Monster Makers

Monster Makers, Pick Me Up Theatre, John Cooper Studio, 41 Monkgate, York, October 23 to 26

“THEY did such a good job with Thrill Me, I knew that this was the company I wanted to premiere Monster Makers in the UK,” said writer-composer Stephen Dolginoff.

Pick Me Up Theatre staged the New Yorker’s murder musical two-hander in January 2018 at York Medical Society.

Now they darken the doors of the John Cooper Studio with a “triple feature horror show”, and once more it is a job well done by Mark Hird’s multi-role-playing cast of five, Andrew Isherwood, Alan Park, Darren Lumby, Tony Froud and Emma Louise Dickinson.

Designer Robert Readman has turned the black-box studio side on, with seating on an angle to the left and right and on the mezzanine level above, from where musical director Sam Johnson surveys all from his keyboard.Entrances on to a black-painted, revolving stage are made through a seemingly tight side door, adding to the sense of suspense or surprise as to who might enter next.

Dolginoff tells three “monstrously true” horror stories behind the making of landmark horror films through a combination of often witty dialogue, B-movie exaggeration and storytelling, emotional songs.

First up, German director FW Murnau (Isherwood) must face Bram Stoker’s furious widow, Florence (Dickinson), in court as she accuses him of stealing Dracula for 1922’s Nosferatu, with lead actor Max Shreck (Froud) showing a moral decency beyond the shifty “THEY did such a good job with Thrill Me, I knew that this was the company I wanted to premiere Monster Makers in the UK,” said writer-composer Stephen Dolginoff.

Next, maverick make-up artist Jack Pierce (Lumby) comes up against autocratic director James Whale (Isherwood) as he strives to convert Boris Karloff (Froud) into Frankenstein’s Monster.

Lastly, Peter Cushing (Froud) knocks the final nails into Hammer Horror’s coffin, making a Frankenstein and Dracula film simultaneously with a paltry budget, an unflappable director (Isherwood’s Terence Fisher], a scene-stealing stuntman (Lumby), doubling stoically and silently for the absent Christopher Lee, and the ever-willing, busty Victoria (Dickinson).

Isherwood’s trio of roles is the stand-out, Froud’s urbane Cushing is a joy too, while Dickinson, Park and Lumby add to the gothic, graveyard humour of this monster smash.

Charles Hutchinson

Review copyright of The Press, York