Any Dream Will Do/Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
While performing in The Phantom of the Opera, Mead auditioned for the BBC series Any Dream Will Do, hoping to win a six-month contract playing Joseph in the 2007 West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. From 10,000 initial auditionees, Mead was selected as one of the final 12 potential 'Josephs' who performed live on TV every Saturday night to win the public's vote.
Immediately after he won the final, a single featuring Mead, with fellow Any Dream Will Do finalists Lewis Bradley and Keith Jack, was released in aid of the BBC's annual Children In Need charity appeal. The single, featuring Any Dream Will Do (performed by Mead) and Close Every Door (performed by all three finalists) reached number 2 in the official UK singles chart.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat opened in the West End on 17 July 2007 to generally good reviews: "Lee Mead… turns out to be both talented and enthusiastic… what distinguishes him is an attractive singing voice and, coming from beneath hair that owes more to Uncle Esau than father Jacob, lots of affable charisma… last night’s audience seemed enchanted" wrote Benedict Nightingale in The Times.
"Lee… was a West End star just waiting for a chance to shine… the sight of him in a loincloth almost called for the appearance of the St John Ambulance" wrote Alun Palmer in the Daily Mirror.
"Mead is in excellent form vocally" wrote The Stage's Lisa Martland. His performance of Close Every Door, "encapsulating both tenderness and defiance", was a highlight for her.
After 600 performances in the role, Mead played Joseph for the last time on 10 January 2009.
Read more about this topic: Lee Mead
Famous quotes containing the words dream, amazing and/or technicolor:
“But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms
Even if we were willing to let it in,”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“One’s gone, one’s born. It’s an amazing process, isn’t it? As many as I’ve delivered, it never fails to awe me.”
—John Lee Mahin (1902–1984)
“We are always talking about being together, and yet whatever we invent destroys the family, and makes us wild, touchless beasts feeding on technicolor prairies and rivers.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)