So, another week and another examination of fraternal rivalry as Willy Russell’s award-winning musical Blood Brothers is followed into the New Theatre by the no less feted Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Yet more five-star delight is on offer for audiences in this polished production honed over decades by director Bill Kenwright.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s take on the Genesis story was their first big hit, fashioned from a 20-minute entertainment conceived for a school performance.

It is impossible not to rejoice in Joseph – which is just as well considering how fast and frequent come opportunities to attend, and in my case comment upon, new productions.

My tally of shows over 40 years is now well into double figures, with a range of stars donning the famous loincloth that includes Jess Conrad, Paul Jones, Jason Donovan, Phillip Schofield and Boyzone’s Stephen Gately, in an all-too-brief excursion into theatre work before his untimely death in 2009.

Not all have prospered in the years since. Who now recalls, say, James Earl Adair and Graeme Smith?

In this week’s production we have a Joseph built to last in the 2009 X Factor winner Joe McElderry.

The excellence of his voice scarcely needs mentioning, since all will have heard him in action on television or in his various recordings.

I can pay him no greater compliment than to say his handling of his character’s set-piece numbers, Close Every Door and Any Dream Will Do, is the best I have heard.

This is far from being a one-person show, though. Lucy Kay, last year’s runner-up in Britain’s Got Talent, uses her classically trained soprano voice to shattering effect in the challenging role of Narrator. So powerful is her delivery that one does sometimes wonder whether the level of amplification is not a tad excessive.

Making his UK debut in the role of Pharaoh, Greek-born Emilianos Stamatakis makes a superb job of the Elvis impersonation we expect. He is in particular fine voice in the ballad King of My Heart, a new number added for the 2007 West End revival of the show

And then, of course, there are Joseph’s 11 envious brothers, who sing and dance to perfection, building to a storming climax in the hoe-down ending to my favourite number, One More Angel in Heaven.

Throughout, the onstage chorus of 32 youngsters prove a credit to Stagecoach Theatre Arts and its choir master Chris Weeks.

5/5