A long long time ago in 1988 our school took its own moto too seriously (something in Latin about the importance of ambition) and decided to put on a west end musical. We were aged 7-13 and fully aware that musical theatre is usually left to adults who have some musical ability but our head of music, Ludwig Van Actually from Surrey (whom you may remember from last time) wanted to carpe some diem and magnify his opus by producing a reworking of Joseph. He’d written a few numbers himself to enhance the original (Webber’s version didn’t have enough catchy toe tappers in it evidently) and better yet, every single boy in the school (including the ones with zero musical ability) would be involved. Overlooking the blindingly obvious hurdle that this was way beyond us we cracked on with rehearsals and Joseph and his technicoloured shit show opened to rows of baffled parents.
The first issue was the sets. I’m led to believe the original transforms the audience to Israel and Egypt via a prison cell and some impressive dream sequences. Our version had some pyramids (Egypt init) that the wood-work teacher had begrudgingly fashioned and some sand we’d probably borrowed from the long jump pit. The prison scene was a low-light. The cardboard cell bars regularly fell over undermining the sense of incarceration of our hero, leaving him to hold the bars up with his free hand that wasn’t holding the microphone. If we’d have done Jericho rather than Joseph we’d have been laughing but instead ,the audience was.
The costumes weren’t great either and the titular garment was especially under whelming. I think Matron had been entrusted with its creation (female so sewing skills assumed – it was the 80s). Part of the brief was that it needed to be put on and removed quickly. Joseph and his colourful wonky poncho was good to go.
As mentioned, Ludwig had written a couple of his own tunes to add to the piece. The most notable was a full number for the Ishmaelites. The lads who Joseph’s brothers sell Joseph to after they beat him up, throw him down a well and tell their Dad he’d been eaten by a wolf (this is a musical! I don’t remember the Rum-Tum-Tugger double-tapping Mr Mistoffelees over a cat-nip deal gone bad). Anyway, Webber and Rice didn’t feel the need to add depth to these characters but opinion was divided on the subject and Ludwig decided they would be a motor cycle gang with their own song because Ishmaelite rhymes with bike (kinda) and if memory serves, “Outta sight”. Some of the purists would have questioned Harleys in 1700 BC Israel but this was a dream and any dream would do. Sadly we couldn’t afford a Harley but we got our hands on a moped. Just the one. So they weren’t really a biker gang. More of a five boys trying to keep up with one boy on a badly controlled moped, gang. The up-beat rock number was lots of fun though giving it a more edgy Sharks v Jets, “Middle-East Side Story” feel to proceedings.
Did I mention we were all in it? If you weren’t one of the 15 boys entrusted with a part you were in the chorus with the uninterested tone-deaf masses – all two hundred plus of us. In a much celebrated section, Joseph first dons the colourful wonky poncho and spins around as the tone deaf masses sing a list of colours that goes on for fucking hours. Ever the optimist, Ludwig expected us to learn the thousands of colours. That was some bold ambition worthy of our motto but definitely a bridge too (Poti)far. Reality set in and instead, two hundred boys confidently mumbled “and it was hmhm and hmm hmm and hmm and hmm and hmm hmm and hmm” We sounded like monks on an Enigma record if the monks’ voices hadn’t broken yet. After several minutes of en-mass mumbling while Joseph spun around like a whirling dervish in his gay pride poncho the song was brought to an abrupt halt with the colour “Blue” where all 200+ uninterested tone deaf chorus members would leap to their feet as one and clap above our heads. Great plan. Didn’t work. Not once. Wiggins was always the first to shoot up. Not even at the end of a bar. We had dozens more hmm hmms to go and Joseph’s poncho was hardly over his head. Wiggins’s neighboured pulled him to the ground from his triumphant solo clap and everyone nervously looked at each other. A few more leapt up in groups a bit too early before the majority got it right followed by the least confident who decided to wait until the others went first. The result was less single cannon and more machine gun fire but the lights were wisely snapped off to hide all the bouncing.
So far we had crap sets, crap costumes, new songs that didn’t fit, a random moped in Genesis Ch37 and 200 boys who couldn’t count. The scene with Potiphar’s wife was a challenge. She’s the slave owner’s wife who fancies Joseph but falsely accuses him of rape when he rejects her – (this is a musical! I don’t remember Mary Poppins making wild and false accusations of Dick Van Dyke: “Super-rapey, misogynistic, that chimney sweep’s atrocious”)
Without girls in the school Potiphar’s wife (she doesn’t get a name because neither Rice, Webber or Moses deemed it necessary) was played by a boy in drag which gave the whole section an unpleasant Christopher Biggins and the Shawshank Redemption feel to it.
The other slightly awkward thing was that the lad playing Joseph was a very accomplished singer but couldn’t pronounce the letter S. This was especially apparent in one number that had a fair few of them and had a call and response section with chorus.
Joseph: “I clothed my eyeth”
Chorus: “I COTHED MY EYETHHHHHHH”
Joseph: “Drew back the curtain”
Chorus “Ah ah Ahhhh”
Joseph: “To thee for thertain”
Chorus: “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
Poor Poor Joseph.
Diaries of Boarding School 