Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

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John Helmer
High school musical
Assailed by lateral rain, we struggle up the steps to
Poppy’s school. Inside the door is an improvised
bar run by our friendly neighbours Clara and
Andy (who plays his bagpipes in the back garden).
I buy a couple of Merlots in plastic cups and order
two more for the interval: the school is performing
Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
tonight, and I can’t sit through an Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical without medication.
Poppy and her friends won’t actually occupy seats
adjacent to grown-ups, of course, so I settle myself
four rows ahead along with another friend, Marit,
who is mother of one of Poppy’s besties (Kate
somehow got out of this one).
The chorus bounces on. I’ll give this to the Lord,
he does crisp exposition. Within minutes Joseph
has donned the multi-coloured dressing gown –
having decided, like a retiring 70s football manager,
that his sheepskin days are over.
‘I can’t understand what’s happening,’
whispers Marit. I explain that it’s not
because she’s Norwegian: ‘the acoustics
in here are rubbish’ (I don’t want to say
anything about clear diction being a
thing of the past because that would
come across like I’m one of those parents
who goes round on open evenings
correcting spellings with a red pen).
‘But why is there no talking between
the songs to let you know what’s going
on?’
‘It’s called a “sung-through” musical.’
Yes, I have all the terminology. This is
because Kate used to work for a company
that produced musicals just like this when we
were first together. Full disclosure: she worked for
the Lord.
Interval. Clara and Andy’s pop-up bar has repopped-up
on the first floor. ‘Did you hear Steve
Strange died?’ says Andy. Andy usually has at least
one earbud plugged into his beloved iPod, and as
we speak he is listening to Visage.
‘Always thought he was a bit of a cock,’ I say,
ungenerously.
Even I can’t fault the production downstairs,
though. Pharaoh-as-Elvis is a real laugh, as are the
inexplicable Apache dancers and the Ishmaelites
dressed as Madness. Inappropriate titters come
from four rows back when Joseph gets jiggy with
Mrs Potiphar under a sheet. And when the kids
start building a pyramid out of Fed-ex boxes I
remember exactly why I love school productions.
By the time the lights come on at the end, Marit is
completely won over.
‘I thought that was absolutely brilliant,’ she says,
eyes shining; ‘how about you?’
For me, Joseph evokes all the worst parts of the
Seventies. Flared jeans with neatly ironed creases.
Hand-knitted waistcoats in rainbow colours … And
then there’s the music itself: jazz, rock, and blues so
thinly watered down that if it were a urine sample
your urologist would say you were dead.
But as the children caper home down the road
ahead of us, dancing and singing, the feeling comes
over me – just as it does on Red Nose Day and
at Christmas – that perhaps sometimes critical
scruples are a bit beside the point.
‘I think the kids did a great job.’
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