Joseph!
On 8th June, there was a production of Joseph And His Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat at St John’s The Baptist Parish Church, Crowthorne. This was performed by the choirs of St Michael’s Church, Sandhurst, and the aforementioned St John’s, plus children from Crowthorne CofE, St Sebastian’s CofE Primary Schools, and friends (including members of our own church and others).
I didn’t count, but I think over twenty children took part in the concert. They didn’t just sing; they held up name cards when cued by the song about Joseph’s brothers, and processed around the audience while pretending to be ‘a hairy bunch of Ishmaelites’ on camels.
Don’t believe the cautionary saying. A definite advantage to performing with children is the number of adult relatives who come to see the show. Consequently, we performed to a capacity audience, and it was a thrill to see so many people having fun and enjoying the occasion that they literally filled the church – a rarity these days! Admission was free (another rarity!) and refreshments were served afterwards.
I should note that this performance coincided with a professional production in the New Victoria Theatre, Woking. Whenever this happens, the professional production team have the right to place constraints on any amateur productions that are on at the same time (like ours). The main such limitation was that we couldn’t perform the complete show (so no acting), therefore we could only sing its songs as a concert. But this was sufficient for us, as you will read.
While several members of our church took part, I can only write from my own perspective – as a narrator. As we were not allowed to use any of the text from the full show, Karen Phillips (MD) asked me to write eight links between certain songs, in my own words, and to read them on the night as a narrator.
A performer always knows when their audience is enjoying the show. In this case ours was raring to take part, not just with enthusiastic applause, but through laughter and a willingness to respond and interact. The first such scripted & rehearsed opportunity for the choir to respond was when I read out “And when Pharaoh sneezed, everyone said…”. The resulting “Bless you” was loud and enthusiastic … and came mainly from the audience! Thereafter, I made sure to invite the audience to join in with three other responses, and –
naughtily!– invented a few more through ad libbing.
By the end, our ‘concert’ had turned into a cross between the historic TV series ‘The Good Old Days’ and a pantomime, and both the audience and the choir left for the refreshments ‘buzzing’. I can think of no better word to describe the excited chatter of people who had enjoyed a performance to the hilt.
Douglas