Why I still love the Edinburgh Festival

When I was in my twenties, exactly 50 Edinburgh Festivals ago, Frank Dunlop directed the first professional production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which Andrew Lloyd Webber and I had written for a primary school concert in 1968. In the first four years of the work’s existence, it began to burrow its way into educational musical syllabi at a modest pace. This we appreciated, but in 1970 we stumbled into overnight success with our double album of Jesus Christ Superstar, and we did not thereafter give our earlier piece the attention it perhaps deserved. Superstar’s hefty impact on both record and stage did cause a certain amount of interest within musical circles, at least to the extent that theatricals wondered where these two slightly posh chaps had come from – and whether they had written anything else. Joseph was the only anything-else available.

Although in most quarters we were not unreasonably considered one-hit wonders (I tended to agree), Frank Dunlop spotted something he liked in our first biblical effort and got in touch to see if he could make it work for an adult cast and audience. He was perfectly happy with the 30-minute piece as it was, except he wanted to shift a few pronouns around so that, for example, the brothers sang their lines in the first person, rather than have great chunks of the piece as an oratorio in the third. Fine, we said, and sort of forgot about it and got on with the Superstar circus.

Two or three months later we were amazed to read rave reviews of Frank’s production of Joseph at the 1972 Edinburgh Festival. It was playing in a converted ice rink together with a first act of medieval plays based on the book of Genesis, and was selling out. We had missed the first night, but managed to make the third or fourth. It was clear that Frank had found a whole new audience for the show and in turning the brothers en masse into a brand new character to sing alongside Joseph, Pharaoh and the know-all narrator, had doubled the humour and added pathos and other plausible elements via the 11-sided fraternity. Plus he had anticipated the significance of pronouns by about 40 years.

So last week I was delighted to come back to the Festival half a century later to reminisce with Iain Dale about my life and times, but in particular about Joseph, and Frank’s interpretation thereof. Iain was hosting a daily series of interviews, primarily with politicians, which was a big draw. The day before me featured Jeremy Corbyn; the day after me, Keir Starmer. The politicians drew a far bigger audience than I did – but will Sir Keir be asked back to reminisce in 2072? I rest my case.

I cannot exaggerate how much Joseph, and therefore Andrew and I, owe to Frank. Without in any way destroying the innocence, humour and tunefulness of the work, he showed how it could stand up to a sophisticated and witty interpretation that would appeal to all ages. Since then, every professional show from the London Palladium and Broadway downwards retains influences of his original production, which has been crucial in sustaining its appeal. Frank’s original cast was a vital factor – Gary Bond as Joseph, Gordon Waller as Pharaoh and Ian Charleson as Gad, one of the brothers. None of those is with us now; none, sad to say, able to reflect – as I find myself doing these days – on being in their seventies. Frank, however, is fit and well into his nineties and is back in Edinburgh right now to help oversee the change of Festival directors. He was the director from 1984 to 1991, a post shortly to be taken by Nicola Benedetti – a splendid choice.

From the moment I was first aware of the Joseph story when aged around seven, the fact that he had 11 brothers made me imagine them as a cricket team. Reuben was the wicket-keeper/captain; Simeon the dashing Denis Compton of the middle order; Asher and Dan the pace attack; and Gad a crafty leg-spinner. No place for Joseph, away on tour in Egypt at the time. Appropriately therefore, 2022 is also the 50th anniversary of the first time I organised a cricket match and assembled my own team, mainly because no other side would pick me. That game led to the creation the following year of Heartaches CC, who have now played 733 matches, winning and losing in roughly equal measure – although, as I write, on a winning streak of four. It is non-celebrity, non-charity, almost aggressively so. I have staggered out onto the field of play once or twice this summer but even the term ‘passenger’ flatters me these days.

Nonetheless I trust I can still make a reasonable contribution to musical theatre. After (to put it mildly) a quiet couple of years, it’s good to get back to work – a probable first UK production of Aida (music by Elton John), a possible return to Broadway for Chess (Abba’s Bjorn and Benny), and a definite new production of From Here to Eternity (Stuart Brayson). We open in October at the Charing Cross theatre for an eight-week run, co-produced by the dynamic young Katy Lipson and directed by Brett Smock who’s done a couple of successful out-of-town versions in New York. I’m still just young enough to get excited.