This Is London 5 April 2019

18
JAC YARROW’S PROFESSIONAL
STAGE DEBUT IN ROLE OF JOSEPH
Jac Yarrow will take the lead role in
the new production of Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the
world famous London Palladium. Jac,
who will be making his professional
stage debut in the iconic role, will star
alongside Jason Donovan and Sheridan
Smith, as Pharaoh and The Narrator.
Jac created a sensation at the
beginning of the year when he starred in
the production of Disney’s Newsies at
the Arts Educational School. Jac, who is
21 and from Cardiff, took the role of
Jack Kelly and gave a breath-taking
performance, marking himself out as an
outstanding talent in the new generation
of theatre stars and creating huge
excitement in anticipation of embarking
upon a professional stage career.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat will play a limited 11-week
season from Thursday 27 June.
Released as a concept album in 1969,
the stage version of Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has
become one of the world’s most beloved
family musicals. The show features
songs that have gone on to become pop
and musical theatre standards, including
Any Dream Will Do, Close Every Door
To Me, Jacob and Sons, There’s One
More Angel In Heaven and Go Go Go
Joseph.
Told entirely through song with the
help of the Narrator, Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat follows
the story of Jacob’s favourite son Joseph
and his eleven brothers. After being sold
into slavery by the brothers, he
ingratiates himself with Egyptian noble
Potiphar, but ends up in jail after
refusing the advances of Potiphar’s wife.
While imprisoned, Joseph discovers his
ability to interpret dreams, and he soon
finds himself in front of the mighty but
troubled showman, the Pharaoh. As
Joseph strives to resolve Egypt’s famine,
he becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man
and eventually reunites with his family.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat is produced by Michael
Harrison.
www.josephthemusical.com
Alex Kingston (Sherri) and Sarah
Hadland (Ginnie) in Admissions.
Photo: Johan Persson.
ADMISSIONS Trafalgar Studios
Head of admissions, Sherri Rosen-
Mason, has devoted the last 15 years of
her career to increasing the intake ratio of
students of colour to privileged white
pupils at the elite New Hampshire school
where her husband Bill is principal. We
meet her first berating flustered longserving
colleague Roberta (Margot
Leicester) who repeatedly fails to grasp
exactly who qualifies as, or looks
sufficiently, black in the photos she’s
selected for the new brochure. They don’t
,in Sherri’s view, reflect the true ethnic and
cultural diversity of the establishment.
But when Charlie, her high-achieving
17 year-old son fails to gain an immediate
place at Yale, and Perry the unseen mixed
race son of her (white) best friend does,
her liberal principles are jettisoned as she
pulls out all the stops in a determined
effort to get her boy the Ivy league
education she believes, probably correctly,
will set him up for life.
Having tackled the question of Jewish
identity in Bad Jews, American playwright
Josh Harman here now spreads his net
further – though one can’t fail to notice that
every onstage member of the cast is white,
the black characters rendered (presumably
deliberately) invisible.
The production (directed by Daniel
Aukin who was also responsible for the
successful 2018 off-Broadway premiere)
can’t quite disguise the sometimes
repetitious nature of dialogue which doesn’t
always sparkle. But in a provocative play
which raises controversial issues, Alex
Kingston (of ER fame) effectively conveys
the unsettling injection of doubt into
Sherri’s absolute certainty whilst Andrew
Woodall’s unemotional Bill explodes into
anger in their pristine kitchen. And,
reprising the role he played in New York,
Ben Edelman rants impressively as Charlie,
initially furious that his privileged white
background meant that he didn’t tick the
right boxes but then causing even more
disruption by taking the values which his
parents brought him up on to what he
decides is their logical conclusion.
Louise Kingsley
t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g a z i n e • t h i s i s l o n d o n o n l i n e