Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BY
It was the show which turned a fresh-faced Jason Donovan from a soap star teeny-bopper idol into a theatrical sensation. Now he has returned to the London Palladium in a revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the musical which rocketed the boyish young Australian to a whole new stratosphere of fame and fortune.
But it didn’t just make him. It also nearly broke him.
We go back 28 years to 1991 and the night of Jason’s debut at the world’s greatest variety theatre. I was there for the Daily Mirror, waiting pensively to see if the darling of Neighbours could conquer the West End.
These were heady days for Jason and heady days for me. I was showbusiness editor of this newspaper.
I’d already flown to Australia to the set of Neighbours, then one of the world’s biggest TV soaps. I’d interviewed Jason, who played Scott Robinson, and I’d been to more than one of his pop concerts.
This, though, was something different. Could he do it? Of course he could.
The show was a smash hit. The Daily Mirror carried my verdict on the front page. “Jason Donovan is the toast of London’s theatreland,” I wrote.
“Jason, far too pretty for his own good, is a vision in white, floating across the stage of the London Palladium. His long blonde wig is a halo around his perfect features.”
These were prophetic words. Jason was too pretty for his own good.
His features were almost alarmingly perfect. And he was too swiftly mega successful. Jason-mania met Joseph-mania. The 23-year-old was overwhelmed. Each night thousands of screaming fans crammed into the streets around the theatre to get a glimpse of their idol.
“He looks vulnerable out there on that big Palladium stage, insecure in the knowledge that every pundit in the house is looking for flaws in the lad from the soap who has ideas above his station,” I also wrote.
Unfortunately the flaws showed themselves, not on stage, but off. Jason couldn’t cope.
He has always been frank about what happened, and how Joseph triggered his descent into a world of drugs which almost killed him. He went wild.
In his words: “I did the 1990s in a
big way. I went out in 1994 and came back in 2001.”
He admits to having cheated death on more than one occasion, only finally cleaning up his act when his future wife Angela Malloch became pregnant and threatened not to allow him to be a father to their daughter.
Before his fall from grace, Jason had the reputation of a Mr Clean, one half of the Jason and Kylie act which had captured the hearts of two nations on opposite sides of the world.
I interviewed him before that fateful 1991 first night in the Palladium’s legendary No1 dressing room.
Liz Taylor, Yul Brynner, Liza Minnelli, Shirley Maclaine and many more great stars had been there before him. He came across as the nicest of young men. Polite, modest, and a bit in awe of his success.
“Sometimes I can’t believe I am really here,” he told me in a wide-eyed sort of way.
His only previous theatrical experience had been at rock gigs giving performances of his hits like Too Many Broken Hearts and Sealed With A Kiss.
“I know I am very privileged,”’ he added.
“For me this is a dream come true.”
The Joseph story, of course, is of a famous dreamer. A farmer’s son who became king of Egypt. The show was the first musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and it was Andrew who approached Jason to ask if he would join this new production – albeit not as the teenage Joseph.
“I think that was a joint decision,’ says Jason, who instead plays Pharaoh. “And I am so relieved not to be wearing a loin cloth.”
Acclaimed Sheridan Smith is the narrator, and Jac Yarrow, straight out of drama school, is Joseph.
Jason Donovan is no longer too pretty, his features no longer perfect. But he doesn’t look bad for a man of 51 who admits to his kind of past. And his legs, still abundantly displayed in a mini tunic, are still rather good.
The hair remains, helped by a transplant about which he is honest, and the colour is still blonde, with or without help. He is also it seems, still pretty decent. Recently jogging near his London home, he helped a women who had collapsed in the street. Jason’s ride through life has not been entirely smooth. But it’s great to see him complete a career circle, wowing them at the Palladium all over again.