Tweet

Windsor Launches Tours of Joseph, Dorian & Wife

Bill Kenwright's touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - which has a place in The Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest-running touring musical - is at it again. Tonight (17 July 2003) at Windsor's Theatre Royal, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice classic launches a new seven-month regional schedule.

The new tour will star Andrew Derbyshire (TV's Pop Idol contestant who went on to join the West End cast of We Will Rock You) in the title role. Meanwhile, the separate West End production, starring Boyzone's Stephen Gately, continues at the New London Theatre, where it opened on 3 March 2003 (previews 13 February) and is currently booking to 28 February 2004.

First seen in 1968, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat retells the biblical story of Joseph, his 11 brothers and his coat of many colours. Its score includes now famous songs such as "Any Dream Will Do", "Close Ev'ry Door to Me" and "One More Angel in Heaven". The touring production, directed and produced by Bill Kenwright, has so far attracted an audience of over 15 million people during its 20-year run.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat continues at Windsor until 26 July 2003 and then calls at Newcastle, Torquay, Reading, Grimsby, Llandudno, Bristol, Cambridge, Sunderland, Glasgow, Eastbourne, Preston, Ipswich, Cardiff, Bromley, Sheffield, Oxford, Cheltenham and Woking, where it concludes its current schedule on 7 February 2004.

Impresario Bill Kenwright will also launch new all-star tours of two classic plays from Windsor this summer: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and W Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife, following its extended West End season last year.

Trevor Baxter has newly adapted Wilde's macabre fantasy novel, published in 1890, about a vain man whose painting ages while he remains young. Robert Powell and Simon Ward lead the cast in the production directed by Elijah Moshinsky. The Picture of Dorian Gray opens at the Theatre Royal from 19 to 23 August 2003, then continues until 6 December to Glasgow, Aberdeen, Nottingham, Mold, Newcastle, Westcliff, Leeds, Belfast, Reading, Wolverhampton and Bromley.

Back at Windsor, it's followed from 27 August to 6 September by the return of The Constant Wife, now recast with Liza Goddard, Michael Praed, Susan Penhaligon and, once again, Sara Crowe. Maugham's 1926 war-between-the-sexes comedy was initially revived at Windsor in March 2002 before transferring to the West End for six months, first at the Apollo and then the Lyric Theatres. Mark Piper recreates Edward Hall's direction on tour.

Following Windsor, The Constant Wife visits Mold, Plymouth, Ipswich, Edinburgh, Westcliff, Guildford and Nottingham, where it also concludes its schedule on 6 December 2003.

- by Terri Paddock

Related Content