Focus Birmingham

by Vidar Hjardeng.

For the best part of 40 years Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music and Tim Rice’s lyrics have combined to make, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, one of the most popular family musicals. I have personally seen it on a number of occasions and was lucky enough to go to the most recent touring production when it came to the Birmingham Hippodrome with, of course, the added bonus of the all-important audio description at last Thursday’s 4.30 pm performance.

The fact that over 30 visually impaired patrons and their companions turned up for a 3 pm touch tour on a weekday afternoon, does I think bear testimony to the show’s sustained appeal. Along with the Company Manager, the Sightlines describing team of Jonathan Nash and Margaret Spittles, took fellow VIPs onto the stage to learn more about the set, which was in fact minimal, and how it was enhanced by imaginative use of different coloured lighting. We were shown a number of props including, of course, the eponymous coat of many colours and some plastic inflatable sheep, which even had one of the guide dogs fooled!
Back in the foyer the Hippodrome team of Liz Leck, Jonathan Thompson and Rachel Sharpe, helped the describers to distribute our headsets, spending time explaining how they worked to the newcomers to audio description among us. A quarter of an hour before the start of the show, we took our seats to tune into the introductory notes ,reminding us of what we had seen onstage, as well as details of the characters and their costumes and other salient information, including the fact that Keith Jack (who starred as Joseph) had been the runner-up in the TV talent show ‘Any Dream Will Do’.
It’s arguable that a visually impaired patron can enjoy this musical, just for the music and the narrative of the lyrics, but whilst the basic story line is clear, what the audio description brought alive was the fact that characters physically acted out the lyrics, for example we heard how Potiphar’s wife was silently trying to seduce Joseph. When the brothers travel to Egypt to beg for food from Pharoah’s chief minister (who they do not know but who is actually their long lost brother,) we hear all about their bowing and scraping, as they plead for help against the famine back in their native land.
The cast worked hard throughout the performance, but really went to town in the curtain call, reprising so many of the well known melodies including what amounts to the show’s signature tune, ‘Any Dream Will Do.’ Again, through the audio description, we were made aware who was taking their well-deserved bow, during this carefully choreographed finale. Altogether once again, a very enjoyable couple of hours courtesy of Spittles and Nash, with a little help from Rice and Lloyd-Webber!

The next audio-described performance at the Birmingham Hippodrome is Country Girl, on the afternoon of Saturday 18 September and details on ticket prices, how to book headsets and places on the touch tour, can be obtained from the box office on 0844 338 5000.