Photos: Mead Takes Final Joseph Bow at Adelphi

Mead, who was cast after winning BBC reality show Any Dream Will Do in 2007, has been playing the role since the production opened at the Adelphi on 17 July 2007 (previews from 6 July). Understudy Ricky Rojas will takeover for the next four weeks until Gareth Gates inherits the dreamcoat from 9 February (See News, 26 Nov 2008).

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Our Whatsonstage.com photographer Dan Wooller was on hand for the curtain call at the Adelphi, where Lee Mead was thanked onstage by Joseph composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who then ceremoniously removed his dreamcoat. Watching from the balcony were guests including Joseph lyricist Tim Rice and Mead’s girlfriend Denise Van Outen, a judge on Any Dream Will Do. After the performance the curly-haired star was mobbed by fans at the stage door.

Joseph started life in 1968 as a 20-minute entertainment for an end-of-term school concert. By the time it received its Broadway premiere in 1982, it had been expanded into a full two-hour show. With music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, Joseph’s popular score includes the songs “Any Dream Will Do”, “Close Every Door to Me”, “Go, Go, Go Joseph”, “Those Canaan Days”, “Benjamin Calypso” and “One More Angel in Heaven”.

The new staging of the record-breaking 1990s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium, which was directed by the late Steven Pimlott, is designed by Mark Thompson and choreographed by Anthony Van Laast. The Really Useful Group production is currently booking at the Adelphi until 18 July 2009.

– By Theo Bosanquet