This year's JCR Musical "Joseph" a Sold-Out Success!

Hannah Newman (2021), Revue Rep, fills us in on the performance - and drama behind the scenes - of this year's fantastic JCR musical:

The 2023 JCR Musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat was a huge success this year - all three performances sold out completely, and the shows went fantastically. The cast did an amazing job and should be very proud of themselves. It was a privilege to direct, and we all had so much fun throughout the whole rehearsal and performance periods.

The cast and crew are extremely grateful to everybody for their help, most notably the staff and benefactors of Lincoln College, without whom these performances would not have been possible. However, as director, the cast are the ones who made this production. They worked tirelessly for between six to eight hours a week in rehearsals, and truly put their all into this show. Despite having some very busy cast members - such as JCR President Fiona Townsley, or Entz Chair Chris Paton, as two of the lead roles among others - they were all so dedicated and a lot of fun to work with.

Rehearsals and performances alike were great fun. Disaster struck only a few hours before the first performance when we discovered that the entire sound system had broken - this led to James Turvey and others having to fix the entire speaker system, while I helpfully flapped about. However, the problem was soon fixed and we were able to do all three performances with no technical hitches whatsoever. Special thanks must go to James, who managed to work out all of the lighting in only two hours - the lights and desk were set up only on the morning of the 25th, and James sped through the musical and created all of the fantastic lighting in such a short period of time. It’s a true talent, but I think James did also enjoy playing with the pretty colours.

The performances were fantastic - everybody sang their hearts out, and even the crew, Thomas Britton, Stage Manager and Rose Gladman, Backstage Assistant, and Kath Simms, Assistant Director, were dancing behind the scenes. It was amazing to see all of our hard work come together, and I hope everybody who watched the shows enjoyed them as much as we did.

As Director, I had the best time overseeing the JCR musical this year - despite the fact that I’ll be graduating this year, I’ll definitely be back to see where Revue goes in 2024, and I hope that as many people get involved next year. It’s such great fun throughout and so rewarding to see all your hard work come to fruition.

Once again, a huge thank you to everybody involved and everybody who made this possible - we are all so grateful and it was a fantastic experience.

Photo credits: Sophia Langeluddecke