Thursday, December 20, 2007

A different Joseph

Although it is always being staged by a high school somewhere, I had never got around to seeing a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

So, last weekend I hired the 1999 video version from the local video library.

If you too have never seen the show, go and get this DVD and have a look. It's great fun, and (I think) about the best video version of a stage show I have ever seen.

Sure, if you have an allergy to Donny Osmond without his shirt on for 90 minutes, you will have your reservations, but he does really well. The show is the complete opposite of the video version of Cats: lively, witty, lots of fast cuts, and very imaginative staging. (I don't like the modern style of overly fast editing of action movies, or even dance movies. But if you are more- or-less just filming a stage show, then lots of cuts between various degrees of distance from the action is one way to keep it more interesting.)

My boy liked it a lot too (although, like most fathers, I don't really want him to show too much of an interest musical theatre, if you know what I mean. He found the fake goat being pulled apart about the funniest bit of the show, though, so maybe it's OK.)

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