Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
There is an unspoken understanding that a work of art or entertainment, like a painting or a film, is inherently a product of its time. When writing about it, a critic would reflect on the personal experiences of the creators; what the art world was going through, and what was happening in the wider world at the time. ​​With theatre, however, it's a lot more complicated. Live performance is a living thing, its elements and relevance reckoned with and revisited by every new creative team that ascends a revival production. There is no visual indication (like the graininess of the film or the fading gold frame of a piece of art) that indicates to an audience they are revisiting a past time. Here, the critique cannot be solely contextual: it must reflect on the show’s relevance to the new world in which it is performed. The choice to include a full cast of children plays out as devastatingly strategic Traditionalists will lament that a product of its time cannot be changed. Seen most starkly in the world of opera, shows like Puccini’s Turandot and Madama Butterfly continue to be produced by mainstage theatre companies in their original form, and audiences continue to buy tickets, despite widespread criticism of their depiction and appropriation of other cultures. When it comes to the most recent revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a 1960s musical re-telling of a story in the bible’s Old Testament, the narrative is much the same – generations of audience nos