IT’S amazing how just one line from a song can take you straight back to a moment in time, and not always a good one.

“Close every door to me, keep those I love from me,” sang Lloyd Daniels as Joseph, in the glare of the spotlight for his big solo, and I immediately became the 11-year-old me, in that self-same role, in that self-same spotlight, forgetting the words to that self-same solo while the audience gasped. Well, my mum did anyway.

Thankfully the stars of this touring production suffered no such nightmares (apart from the ones crucial to the plot) on their opening night here in Swindon, and for most of the audience - who rose to their feet whooping and cheering for the end number - the whole show was a dream from beginning to end.

Thanks to the popularity of the Rice/Lloyd Webber collaboration in the early 90s (remember Jason Donovan in a loincloth?) there can be few people who aren’t familiar with this jazzed-up Biblical tale. In a nutshell, it’s a story of sibling rivalry and betrayal, in which the wrong-doers get their just desserts but then redeem themselves.

But in a break from the Genesis version, there’s a Pharoah who fancies himself as Elvis, a talking camel and a narrator wandering around Canaan telling anyone who will listen what’s going on.

Oh yeah, and there’s a coat. A really, really bright coat. And a whole bunch of songs to be sung about it.

Former X Factor finalist Lloyd Daniels takes the title role, clearly relishing his first job in musical theatre, while another of the show’s nearly-winners, Amelia Lily, steps into the lyric-heavy role of Narrator. Both are stunning vocalists, although Lloyd slipped into an unmistakably Welsh accent for his few speaking lines, while Northern lass Amelia seemed to be channelling Julie Andrews throughout, with her heavily clipped vowels and marked pro-nun-cee-ay-shun.

Ex-EastEnder Matt Lapinskas brings some humour and a faster pace as that rock ‘n’ roll Pharoah.

The show has aged well despite being written in the 1970s, and, along with the rest of the delighted audience, I found myself singing along to every word.

It’s only taken me 30-odd years to get them right. - MICHELLE TOMPKINS