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.
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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.