Gareth Gates Dons Dreamcoat After Lee Mead???

Gareth Gates, who was runner-up to Will Young on the 2002 series of TV’s Pop Idol, is the latest name rumoured to be taking over from Lee Mead, when he leaves Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the new year (See News, 18 Jul 2008). Ahead of making his possible West End debut, Gates is due to make his professional stage debut next month in Cinderella, playing Prince Charming to Joanna Page’s Cinders. The pantomime runs at the New Wimbledon Theatre from 5 December 2008 to 18 January 2009.

Other celebrities who’ve previously been mentioned as Joseph successors have included Hollywood’s Zac Efron and Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones (See The Goss, 19 Sep 2008). Lee Mead, a reality TV winner himself having got the job by winning the BBC’s Any Dream Will Do, will give his last performance in the title role on 10 January 2009, having been in the title role since the production opened at the West End’s Adelphi Theatre on 17 July 2007 (previews from 6 July). 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.

A casting announcement is expected to be made next Wednesday, 26 November 2008…