Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat hits Liverpool next week with its cast picked from last year’s Any Dream Will Do TV show. Emma Pinch talks dreams and greasepaint with local star Chris Barton
THERE’S one song in particular that audiences wait breathlessly for when the curtain goes up on Joseph.
And twice a week, Chris Barton, 20, from Ormskirk, gets to belt the Rice/Webber classic to audiences all over the country. It’s not quite the dream he had, but it will certainly do for now.
When Chris crashed out of the BBC talent show to find a new star for the West End stage, on May 5 last year, it seemed like the end to an ambition he had nurtured since the age of four.
He was later picked, alongside three other losing Josephs, to perform with the touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and he has spent five months rotating the title role with that of lesser character Ben and the narrator, across England.
Losing the competition, he claims, was a blessing in disguise.
“Falling straight into the deep end of a lead role is quite a big challenge really. If I had won, it would have been amazing, but I don't know if I was completely ready. It’s not just the show, it’s all the promotion, the things that come with winning it, you’re busy with that.
“Being on tour is a big learning curve and it’s helped me work my way up. Hopefully, I’ll slowly graduate to the higher role.”
Chris was studying for a diploma in musical theatre at Liverpool Theatre School when he discovered he had made it on to the BBC show. Growing up, he says, his family supported his youthful ambition, sending him to drama school since the age of 10, and to Elliott-Clarke in Liverpool, also the alma mater of Jennifer Ellison and Claire Sweeney.
He goes home most weekends and takes his family out.
“It’s nice for my family to know I’m making something of myself. As a child, I never watched any TV, I was always dancing round the house and doing shows for my family in the living room while my granddad shone a torch on me as a spotlight.
“The first show I ever saw, when I was four, was Joseph. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat without blinking the whole way through. I grew up on the music and knew Joseph was my dream role.”
He’s always known that he’s the one who has to make things happen for himself, and that other golden rule of showbusiness, that you have to make the most of any lucky break.
After his public rejection, he spent a few days licking his wounds, then set about viewing it in a positive light. “The night I went out of the competition . . . it was our life for so many months.
“When I went out I was disappointed and a tiny bit relieved as well that I could kind of relax and not worry about it and just hoped I would get something from the TV show. I went home the day after, read all the comments and critiques on the internet, nasty and nice, and sat in my bedroom and went: ’What do I do now?’
“I rang agents and casting directors and realised I had to just get out there.”
His contract runs out in May, but he’s got an album of Joseph songs coming out with co-stars Craig Chalmers, Chris Crosby and Keith Jack, and he’s currently auditioning for West End musicals.
Having tasted the rigours of the nine to five – as an assistant in the make-up and fragrance department in Manchester’s Selfridges, and at a tanning shop – he’s determined to keep his star in the ascendancy.
His contem-poraries from theatre school are slogging away on slower routes to stardom. Many are performing on cruise ships, while one of his mates is in My Fair Lady, in Runcorn.
“Lead roles in this business, without a reality TV show, are quite rare. I’ve been lucky. Without Any Dream Will Do, I wouldn’t have this job now.
“You never know what is going to happen next. You can’t plan anything, you just have to get out there and audition, and if you do have a few months off, keep auditioning and keep at it. So many give up and get settled into a normal day job and get used to the regular money.
“I was terrible as a shop assistant,” he adds. “I used to do the make-up and they used to make me wipe it all off. I was full-time for a while when I was waiting to start my college course. I’m not going to go back to that again.”
For now, he’s looking forward to the Empire and showing his friends and family what he’s been up to. A whole coachload of them – 65 people in total – will be sighing with delight when he softly croons: “I close my eyes . . . ”
He’s not settling for any old dream just yet.
* JOSEPH and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat plays at the Empire, Feb 25 – March 8.
