Lloyd Webber Moving Forward with TV Reality Show to Cast London Joseph

As previously reported, Andrew Lloyd Webber is creating a reality TV casting call for a London stage production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It has now been confirmed that the program, Any Dream Will Do, will be broadcast on BBC1 and hosted by Graham Norton.

Any Dream Will Do intends to find not just the titular star of Tim Rice and Lloyd Webber's earliest commercial success, but also a girl to play the narrator, a Pharaoh /Elvis impersonator and a school choir. It will follow a similar format to the highly successful How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, an eight-week TV contest from which Connie Fisher was chosen to play Maria in the London Palladium's current production of The Sound of Music.

Norton, who served as the host of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, will return to emcee the new show, in which an expert panel, including Lloyd Webber, critiques the talents of the competing West End wannabes. Ultimately, a public phone-in vote decides who will be told "don't call us..." and who will go on to bask in fame and acclaim.

"The success of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? this summer was a real boost for musical theater in Britain, and I was particularly thrilled with the reaction from schoolchildren up and down the country," Lloyd Webber said. "I cannot wait to get them involved in Any Dream Will Do and to get back into the studio with Graham. Joseph started in schools, and I am looking for a great school choir. To play in the West End, we need a smashing girl, a great boy and of course a Pharaoh/Elvis."

Peter Fincham, BBC1's controller, commented that the new show is "a perfect follow up to the success of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a classic musical known to generations of schoolchildren." He also said, "I think this show will have huge appeal for the BBC1 audience."

Lloyd Webber previously told Theatre.com that he intends to revive the version of the show that Steven Pimlott directed at the London Palladium in 1991, which was also seen on Broadway at the Minskoff Theatre. "We might want to make a slightly revised take on it," he added. More recently, the show returned to the West End in Bill Kenwright's touring production that played at the New London Theatre from 2003 to 2005.

No schedule has yet been announced for when the program will be aired or when the show will open in the West End.