Re-injecting playfulness into Joseph on stage

SussexWorld

Christina Bianco will be our narrator as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat heads to the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, from May 13-18, the latest happy chapter for Christina since her move from the States to the UK around four years ago.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Now lovely

00:06to speak to Christina Bianco again. We last spoke four and a half years ago, four years

00:11ago when you just moved to the UK permanently. You were touring in Little Voice. You've clearly

00:18loved the UK. You're still here. You are now on the road with Joseph. And that sounds

00:22a super, super appealing, super lively version of Joseph. You are the narrator, but a special

00:28kind of narrator. There's a mischievousness that you're bringing to the heart, isn't there?

00:33Tell me more. Yes, there is. Well, the narrator is such an iconic role that so many performers,

00:39and particularly vocalists, want to play and want to sing. And it's so joyous. The music,

00:45as we all know, is infectious. And it's just a blast. And for me to step into the shoes of

00:50people who have played this before me, like Lindsay Haitley and Sheridan Smith, it's absolutely

00:55a true honour. And it's great to give it my own little twist. And this production

01:00makes it quite easy. And this production, this Palladium production that this is the latest

01:10incarnation of, the narrator also plays a few of the roles. Plays Jacob, plays Potiphar's wife,

01:17plays a jailer. I play a random French lady in Canaan. It's absolutely joyous to get to wear

01:27these different hats and dance. Oh, my goodness, they've got me dancing. I don't know. I should

01:32have told them I don't do it anymore. But there I am dancing eight shows a week with all these kids

01:36running around. It is so playful. It's so playful.

01:38You're saying the narrator is a little bit of a naughty babysitter then.

01:43Yeah, well, think about it. I mean, you're telling the story of Joseph. And right away,

01:48I mean, I'm introducing Joseph, I'm bringing him out with the kids, and I'm telling his story,

01:52and I'm setting him off on this wonderful journey that then turns out to be not so wonderful. And so

01:58Joseph is looking at me like, why are you doing this to me? It's like, it's just a story, my friend.

02:02Okay, off you go back to jail. You know, it's one of those things where the narrator's part is really

02:09very much the puppet master of this whole piece, a loving and playful puppet master. But you have to

02:16tell the full story. So it's not all sunny and lovely. And so I have to show all those colors.

02:22And that's really fun, too, because very often in previous productions, the narrator does just

02:28narrate on the side of the stage without really an opinion about what's going on. But my

02:32narrator not only has an opinion is making it happen. So yes, I have the power over the story.

02:39So if anybody in the company upsets me, you know, you never know what might happen.

02:42It sounds like a lovely latest chapter for you since you moved to the UK. And it's been a good move,

02:49hasn't it, for you? You saw the UK as a place of opportunity, and that's proven to be the case.

02:54Yeah, it's true. You know, people say, you know, the grass is always greener. I have so many

02:58friends here in the UK that that love the US and love particularly New York City. And I think that

03:04there is a true love for London and New York, but there's true love between the cities. And so moving

03:11here didn't feel so foreign, didn't feel so crazy, not just because I'd been working and performing in

03:16the UK for about six to eight years prior to my move here. But also because it's it's familiar, you know.

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