Re-injecting Technicolor playfulness into Joseph on stage

This is a production which goes back to the energy of the very earliest incarnations of Joseph, she explains: “Everyone says to me that the narrator is quite a lot of work because it's quite a big sing but the real difference is that in this production the narrator doesn't just stand at the side of the stage all the way through and tell the story. I actually get to play a few other characters as well, and I'm dancing as well, and I like to think of the narrator in this production as the babysitter that the parents should not have left the children with! She is mischievous. She is the puppet master and she orchestrates the whole show, and basically we are just bringing it back to the way that it was originally intended. A lot of the productions that people have loved for good reason have gone away from that original playfulness and that's really what we're wanting to bring back into it, that playfulness and that energy, that vibe from the original production.”

For actress, singer, impressionist and writer Christina, Joseph is yet another vindication of her move to the UK: “I had been working a lot in the UK and also Europe for about five years before and also travelling internationally for about eight years prior. And I just found that I was getting the most wonderful opportunities in the UK. I'm not necessarily saying that I was getting a million job offers but I was getting opportunities that really excited me and stretched me. Even the jobs I didn't go for or go for the audition for really sounded interesting and I suppose we reached the point where we didn't want to just wonder ‘What if?’ all the time. We started contemplating moving. Luckily my husband works in the veterinary world but I met him as an actor and performer so he really understands the industry and it just got to the point where we thought that we should move.

“There are so many people in all of America competing for work essentially in two cities plus the tours but it's not just the competition. It’s that it gets very, very cliquey. You're very often typecast or put in a box. And that happens all over the place but much more so in America and for me it just came down to that.

“I did my own work as a singer and an actor in New York before my YouTube voices went viral, and I believe when that happened it was even easier for New York to compartmentalise me into being the girl that does multiple roles in multiple voices. But you just can't do the same thing over and over again. I was getting opportunities that didn't really excite me or challenge me but in the UK I definitely was. Perhaps in the UK people are a little bit more open minded; maybe also there's that repertory tradition; but also it’s a place where people can do sketch shows and comedy shows but still never get compartmentalised. You think of people like Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. And so we moved. And it has been great!”