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Lee Mead

Date of Birth: 14 July 1981

Location: Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom

Lee Stephen Mead (born 14 July 1981, Southend-on-Sea) is a British musical theatre actor, best known for playing the male lead in the 2007 London West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show's composer/co-producer Andrew Lloyd Webber cast Mead in the role because he won the BBC reality talent show Any Dream Will Do. Prior to being chosen as "Joseph", Mead had played the part of the Pharoah, to critical acclaim.

Aged eight, Mead "went to see Joseph with his other gran,” his grandmother Lilian Horning, 77, told 11 June's Mirror, adding: "He saw Joseph and pointed to him and said 'That's who I want to be'. Acting and singing is all he ever wanted to do."

In 2007, Mead took part in the BBC series Any Dream Will Do, eventually winning the role of Joseph in a West End revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on 9 June. From early on, the odds on him winning were fairly short.[3] "People thought Lee was the pro," said Lloyd Webber on the show after host Graham Norton had announced the result. "But he's only been an understudy in the show and he's never performed in front of me or really very many people at all." He added to Mead:"I think it's an amazing achievement that you've done tonight." Guardian TV critic Lucy Mangan wrote in the daily on June 14 that '...beautifully bone-structured Lee, who looked his studio audience in the eye as he sang, hit the top notes without looking as though he wished Joseph's brothers had left him safely down the well before all these key changes started happening'. On the 26 May episode, singer Josh Groban chose Mead as the contestant with whom he would perform a duet of You Raise Me Up live on the results show.

Before viewers’ phone votes were counted in the final, non-voting judge, West End and Broadway impresario and producer – and Tony-nominated director - Bill Kenwright told Mead: "This is my moment of truth...You've worked for me. You've understudied for me (as Pharaoh on a provincial tour of the show). I should have seen back then what everybody’s seen for the last eight weeks. You’re not an understudy. You're a leading man. You're a star. It's taught me a lot, this series. You're going to wake up tomorrow... a West End leading man." Doctor Who, Torchwood and West End star John Barrowman said: “…you can see from the audience here they love watching you. You're definitely the quintessential leading man." And Lloyd Webber said: “You're a fantastic performer... You're phenomenal. You're a great showman. You've got everything there." At a BBC TV party, held 'moments after' Mead's victory was announced, Kenwright and Barrowman gave Lloyd Webber's video blog their thoughts on Mead and the final (Kenwright speaks first).

On 12 June, Mead - with fellow finalists Lewis Bradley and Keith Jack - released a double A-side single (recorded on June 10) featuring the songs "Any Dream Will Do" (performed by Mead, as winner) and "Close Every Door" (an ensemble piece featuring all three finalists). The proceeds from this single will go to the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal. On 17 June the single entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 18 on downloads only. It was released on CD on 18 June 2007. In 24 June 2007's chart, the single - both physical and downloads - peaked at No. 2, before slipping to No. 5 in 1 July's chart.[8]

The BBC had commissioned an Any Dream Will Do - The Winner's Story Christmas special, wrote Heat magazine's Jason Arnopp in an interview with Mead. It was shown on BBC One on 29 December 2007.

Announcing the result, Norton told Mead: "You're now the star of Andrew's show and, officially, the People's Joseph." As winner, Mead gained a six-month contract to lead the revived 1991 London Palladium production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at London's Adelphi Theatre, with previews from 6 July and its first night on 17 July 2007. Booking was so fast that on 3 July 2007 — when the first three months were sold out — the producers extended the show's run and Mead's contract until 7 June 2008. His contract has now been extended to January 2009.

In his first public performance since winning the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on BBC One’s Any Dream Will Do, Mead on, 1 July 2007, sang Any Dream Will Do with movie Joseph Donny Osmond and 1991 West End Joseph, Jason Donovan in front of 63,000 people in London’s Wembley Stadium as the UK's Princes William and Harry's 2007 Concert for Diana sought to celebrate their mother's life.

When the box office opened 48 hours after Mead's win, booking for the show’s revival was faster than it had been for The Sound Of Music in 2006, in which Connie Fisher had won the starring role of Maria in the BBC’s first search-for-a-star series, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, the London evening paper added. After Mead's win, tickets for the show's originally-planned six-month run sold so fast that his home town newspaper, The Echo, reported on 30 June that in three weeks all tickets for the first three months were sold out - and the producers had extended the show's run - and Mead's contract - until 7 June 2008.[11]Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group confirmed that on 3 July 2007, adding that Mead, who had already foregone a week of holiday to which he was contractually entitled, would be taking off four weeks in January, March and May 2008.

Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group had on 27 June 2007 announced that it would donate all receipts from two special performances of the show's revived West End production to the BBC’s Children in Need charity appeal, which would benefit from ticket sales for 16 July’s booked-out preview and the sold-out 16 November performance, the night of the annual Children in Need telethon. Cast members, the group added, would not get the usual first night gifts on 17 July – the money would, instead go to Children in Need.

Before opening night, the producers had banked more than £10 million (about US $20.4 million) in receipts from ticket sales, BBC One's breakfast show reported on air on 18 July – and the Daily Telegraph reported the next day.

Critics did not enjoy their usual flawless evening out on 17 July's opening night. A revolving stage ground to a halt, bringing 'the multi-million pound production to a halt for five minutes, the next day's Daily Mail reported. ‘A furious-looking Andrew Lloyd Webber leapt from his chair...and stropped off back stage.’ The doyen of UK theatre critics, The Guardian 's Michael Billington found the recreation of Steven Pimlott's 1991 Palladium production 'cutesy, camp ...and even by the self-parodic standards of a West End first night...a pretty bizarre occasion. The losers of TV's Any Dream Will Do competition were seated together like Joseph's envious brethren. Predatory camera crews roamed the aisles in the interval seeking soundbites'. ‘Joseph virgin’ Rhoda Koenig confessed in the Independent she had enjoyed herself. ‘Mead,' she admitted, 'more than fulfils the requirements, his way of filling a pleated loincloth...will appeal to all sexes.’ The Daily Mail 's Quentin Letts, had ‘slowly thawed and by the end...Joseph had won me round. As it will do London.'

‘Lee Mead... certainly makes a stronger star than Jason Donovan, who came across as the Goldilocks of Genesis,’ wrote The Times 's Benedict Nightingale. ‘Lee...was a West End star just waiting for a chance to shine...the sight of him in a loincloth almost called for the appearance of the St John Ambulance,’ wrote Alun Palmer in the Mirror.

‘The charisma of (1992’s) Phillip Schofield or (1991’s) Jason Donovan – whose coat Mead had inherited – passes him by...These limitations do not much reduce the special pleasures of the occasion, wrote The Evening Standard’s rigorous Nicholas de Jongh.[21] The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer admitted ‘to experiencing a sugar rush of pure pleasure...what Lee Mead has in spades is charm, crucial in a role that could easily seem unattractively priggish...'

“Well fit, great butt!” was novelist Tim Lott’s teenage daughter’s verdict on Mead in Joseph, anchor Mark Lawson said on BBC Radio 4’s daily Front Row arts magazine. His daughter "would not be that vulgar", Lott protested. That aside, the show was " very slick, very kitsch – and I really enjoyed it," he added. "It's sold so many tickets...it's critic-proof," said Lawson. At the BBC’s London regional website Mark Shenton felt Mead was picture-perfect. And, ‘with a resonant voice that's reminiscent of a young Michael Ball, he's pitch-perfect, too.' For the BBC Breakfast show's reviewer Mead was "a star". ‘Mead is in excellent form vocally,’ wrote The Stage's Lisa Martland. 'His...Close Every Door, encapsulating both tenderness and defiance', was a highlight for her. ‘Lucky for the producers that...Mead comes up with the goods and appears relaxed and assured doing so.’ It would be, she added, a hit, ‘whatever the critics say’. For the Daily Express’s Paul Callan, Mead's ‘voice is clear, firm and convincing...there were moments when...audience went into sensual overdrive when almost all of his clothes fell away...’

‘In this musical about dreams coming true...Mead, from Essex, a cab driver’s son and winner of the television talent show...takes to the West End stage in nothing but a skimpy loincloth and a smile,’ wrote Christopher Hart in Sunday Times. 'He’s perfect.' Mead 'looks angelically innocent, takes being stripped to a loincloth in his stride, and sings "Close Every Door" with dusky mellifluousness’ wrote Kate Bassett in The Independent on Sunday. ‘Tuneful, charismatic and endearing’, he was a ‘faultless Joseph ...at once a torso-flashing pretty boy and serious West End player,’ wrote Barbara Ellen in 22 July’s The Observer.

(Sourced by wikipedia.org)