‘There was a bit of me in Joseph,’ says Jason Donovan with a smile, recalling the crazy nights of the early Nineties when thousands of fans crammed the streets around the London Palladium for a glimpse of their idol going in to play the lead role in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He fitted the role perfectly. ‘It’s about being a blond, blue-eyed kid singing: “I look handsome! I look smart!”’ He sings the song – Joseph’s Coat – to himself, then frowns. ‘And people judge you for that. People are jealous sometimes.’
Jason Donovan today. He is about star once again in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, this time as Pharaoh
Incredibly, Donovan is about to return to the Palladium in the same show – but this time playing Pharaoh. ‘I got a phone call from Andrew Lloyd Webber last year with this mad idea. Initially, there were discussions about Joseph, and we all agreed that you can’t repeat that success.’
So did his lordship tell Donovan he was too old to play the biblical teenager? ‘I think it was a mutual decision.’ Not a question of wanting to avoid putting a middle-aged man in a loincloth then? ‘Not at all. I’m in reasonably good shape for a 51-year-old. I’ve certainly looked after myself.’
Donovan does look fit in his dark blue suit and black T-shirt. The face is more worn than it used to be, but that’s no surprise. The blond hair remains, with a little help from a transplant clinic, which he’s been open about.
And he sounds great for a man who has been – by his own admission – to hell and back, after spiralling into drug addiction that nearly ended his life in the Nineties. He’s incredibly candid about how it was Joseph that triggered his crisis, how his wife Angela helped to turn his life around and what he tells his own children – Jemma, 19, Zaz, 17, and Molly, eight – about drugs.
Jason Donovan as Joseph in 1992. Donovan says that listening to his original recording of Joseph from 1991 was a bittersweet experience
‘We have a solid family,’ he says. ‘I came from a broken family. I’ve always said – and I’ve said this very fully – if you want to do drugs, come home. We can sit around and talk about them and look at them, and do it together if we have to. Let’s break those barriers down. Demystify it.’
That’s strong stuff. ‘Some people are like: “Woah! You shouldn’t be saying that.” No, that’s the truth, man. You don’t like it, then tough. You only educate your kids to make choices, and hopefully they’ll make the right ones.’
He certainly made the right choice recently while out for a jog near his home in Notting Hill, when he saw a woman lying unconscious on the pavement, called 999, put her in a recovery position and stayed until an ambulance crew came. ‘I just did what anyone else would have done,’ is all he’ll say about that, although pictures taken by a passer-by were all over social media. Today we’re sitting outside a café close to where it happened.
Donovan says that listening to his original recording of Joseph from 1991 was a bittersweet experience. ‘I was quite blown away. Genuinely like, “Wow, Jason. You should’ve been really pleased with what you did.”’ He wasn’t happy then? ‘No. Never satisfied at the time. Always worried about, “Am I going to get that note?” Or, “Am I good enough?”’
Donovan was already a star when he took the role, having shot to fame in the Australian soap Neighbours alongside Kylie Minogue and having topped the charts with a string of hits including the Kylie duet Especially For You. So when he agreed to strip to the waist and star in Tim Rice and Lloyd Webber’s musical, the result was Joseph-mania.
‘I can’t imagine [One Direction’s] Harry Styles going: “I’ll put on a loincloth and sing, we’ll do it at the Palladium.” It’s a different world we live in. The show had a number-one album and a number-one single. Joseph was a cultural phenomenon and it took me completely by surprise.
‘When I first heard the song Any Dream Will Do, I wasn’t convinced it was anything other than a really nice piece for the theatre. They all said it would go to number one, but I said: “No way!” And it did.’ A generation sang along, and still does. ‘To this day, I can be at a festival doing my Eighties songs alongside Heaven 17 or Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet and when I sing Any Dream Will Do… the crowd goes nuts! Every time. I’m getting goosebumps now thinking about it.’
Donavan with Kylie Minogue on Red Nose Day in 1989. There was a reunion last summer, when he turned up on stage with Minogue at her gig in Hyde Park
How is this new production of the show going to be different? ‘I think the director, Laurence Connor, is aiming to show the story through the kids’ eyes, as opposed to the adults’, but how he’s actually going to do that, I don’t know. I’ve seen the sets. I’ve done a costume fitting, but I don’t know too much about the rest.’ At least he wasn’t asked to play Joseph’s elderly father – ‘That could be in another 30 years!’
Instead he’ll be putting on an Elvis-style jumpsuit to play Pharaoh – as usual in Joseph – as the king of rock ’n’ roll. ‘I still wanted to be part of it, so we had discussions about playing Pharaoh. An older figure looking back on Joseph. It seemed to fit.’ The Narrator will be played by two-time Olivier winner Sheridan Smith. Joseph will be a newcomer, Jac Yarrow, making his professional stage debut. ‘Jac seems lovely – young and energetic,’ says Donovan. ‘I can’t wait to embrace what he does and support him, as someone who has been there, done it all.’
He’s not kidding about that. Donovan’s fall from grace began when he was at the top of his game, playing Joseph for £30,000 a week. Self-doubt was eating into him, though, at the age of 23. ‘I was exhausted. I just wanted to go out and have a good time. Playing Joseph was ironic, because there I was in white socks and a loincloth, working hard, but I was also going: “I don’t think this is me.” I had a Justin Bieber/Britney Spears moment of going: “Is this cool?”’ Those stars rejected clean images and went off the rails for a while. As did he.
‘I was going home and listening to Nirvana and having a drag.’ He means taking drugs, which progressed from cannabis to cocaine.
‘It took me a journey of discovery to realise there was no such thing as being cool.’
That was a very bumpy ride, as he once said: ‘I’ve cheated death a few times. Once as a kid in a swimming pool and probably a few times where I took too many substances and ended up in hospital.’ In 1995 a seizure brought on by cocaine saw him collapse at Kate Moss’s birthday at The Viper Room club in Los Angeles, where River Phoenix had died of an overdose two years earlier.
That sounds pretty rock ’n’ roll. Donovan shakes his head. ‘There’s nothing heroic or cool about what I did with cocaine. I didn’t really think about the low points, because I just got back on the drugs and went through it again. Thank God my wife came along: a woman who was prepared to be strong with me and make me look at myself and my responsibilities rather than being obsessed with what I could have been.’ Angela Malloch, a stage manager he met while performing in The Rocky Horror Show, fell pregnant by Donovan and said he would have to get clean if he wanted to be a father to her daughter. ‘When you’re an addict it has to start with you, but there are triggers that help send you forward. I needed a reason to move on, then Jemma was born.’
People think fondly of Donovan. When he goes back on stage in Joseph, he’d better be ready for another tsunami of love
With Malloch’s support, Donovan got clean and clawed his way back to popularity, appearing on Strictly Come Dancing and I’m A Celebrity… as well as recently performing nearly 130 nights in his one-man show Jason Donovan And His Amazing Mid-Life Crisis.
Now his daughter Jemma is starring in the soap that made his name, Neighbours. Would he ever go back? ‘I never say never, but now Jemma is there it’s different. The only way I would do it is if Kylie and Guy [Pearce] came back with me for a one-off. Wouldn’t that be fun? But my life is here.’
But there was a reunion that drew a great deal of attention last summer, when he turned up on stage with Minogue at her gig in Hyde Park. ‘The truth was that I texted her the day before and I said: “Good luck with tomorrow. It’s a big one. I’m rooting for you.” And she said: “Come down!”
‘On the Sunday [the day of the concert] I thought: “You know what? I’ve been doing too much of the rosé at lunchtime and I’ve a had a good month off.” It’s that worst period on a Sunday, between two and seven. You know what I mean? It’s boring. So it’s like, OK, I’ll get on my push-bike and ride down there.’ Donovan lives near Notting Hill, not far from Hyde Park. ‘I pulled up to her dressing room backstage, and the first person I saw was Rick Astley. He looked a little anxious. I said: “What are you doing?” He said: “I can’t really say.” In my mind I’m thinking: “I hope he’s not singing Especially For You, otherwise I’ll be p****d off!”’ Astley was actually there to sing Never Gonna Give You Up.
‘I went and had a chat to Kylie. I said: “I’d love to do it, but I’ve had no rehearsal. It’s a big gig. You don’t want to get it wrong.” And she said: ‘Don’t worry about it – just join in the chorus. Why don’t we do the dance routine?’ I was like: “Not that b***** dance routine!”’ The cheesy routine of Especially For You is what a lot of people remember from their appearance on Top Of The Pops in 1988, when the two of them were lovers in real life.
There was a huge surge of fondness for him in the crowd, without Donovan doing anything much special. ‘I’d have loved to have rehearsed it and made the moment what it should have been, but I’m going to take the love.’
A passer-by smiles and mouths hello. He smiles back and raises a hand in acknowledgement. People think fondly of Donovan. When he goes back on stage in Joseph, he’d better be ready for another tsunami of love.
‘Mate, I just can’t wait!’
‘Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ is at the London Palladium from June 27. josephthemusical.com