Now BBC plans Joseph and Grease star searches

Published Thursday 16 November 2006 at 16:30 by Liz Thomas

The BBC is planning to follow the success of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? with shows to find the stars for new productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Grease.

Insiders at the Corporation say they are keen to build on the popularity of the talent show, which pulled in ratings in excess of six million and led to Connie Fisher securing the lead in The Sound of Music in the West End. One source said that the ideal situation would be to run a talent search series for Joseph next year, with Grease lined up for 2008.

The source added that while discussions were still in the early stages, any proposals for Joseph would need to be agreed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and that the BBC were keen to ensure he featured in future shows. However Lloyd Webber, speaking to The Stage at last night’s premiere for The Sound of Music, was reticent about his plans for the future, saying he had a number of offers from both the BBC and ITV, as well as in the US. He added that he wanted to take a step back from television to concentrate on working on his adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita, which he intends to turn into an opera or a musical.

This admission comes despite the fact the impresario recently revealed that he would like to do a talent search for Joseph. He told a website: “I’d like to do Joseph this way, I think we could have a lot of fun with it. There’s Joseph himself, a girl narrator, and of course there’s huge fun in finding an Elvis, as well as finding the best children’s choir and the brothers. We could even have a situation where we keep sending the brothers to ridiculous places and ask the public to tell us where to send them next week. Then Tim [Rice] and I could write a new song in the course of the week, which they could perform when they get there.”

As The Stage exclusively revealed earlier this year, David Ian is working on a US spin-off of the format searching for new talent to star as leads Sandy Dumbrowski and Danny Zuko in a new Broadway production of Grease. Entitled You’re the One That We Want, Ian will be a judge on the show, and after initial reports the pair had fallen out over the plans, Lloyd Webber is now set to appear in three episodes of the programme.

If a UK version of the Grease show does come to fruition it is not likely to be until at least 2008 because of Ian’s hectic schedule. He recently explained that if such a series was to go ahead, he would have to be involved in discussions.