‘Dreamcoat’ Is a Colorful Presentation on PBS

Even if you feel like throwing a shoe at those yowling “Cats,” blowing up the rails of the “Starlight Express” or smashing the pipe-organ keys of a certain “Phantom of the Opera,” chances are that you still have a hard time resisting the funny, sunny charms of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

This early collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice turned out to be one of the best projects that either of them has yet turned out, together or with other songwriters. In retelling the Old Testament story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, composer Lloyd Webber came up with a lively and amusing mixture of song styles--including pop, jazz, country, French cabaret songs and lilting Caribbean rhythms--while lyricist Rice penned such playful lyrics as “Don’t give up, Joseph, fight till you drop, / We’ve read the book and you come out on top.”

An infectiously entertaining film of the musical--modeled closely upon the hit touring revival of the ‘90s--premieres tonight as a “Great Performances” presentation on PBS stations KCET and KVCR. Donny Osmond, who logged nearly 2,000 performances in that production, stars as Joseph, while Richard Attenborough and Joan Collins show up in featured roles.

Directed by the revival’s helmsman, Steven Pimlott, and David Mallet, the film adds a fresh twist by framing the story as a performance at a prep school. In so doing, it pays homage to the show’s origins as a children’s musical for a London school in 1968, while evoking “Wizard of Oz”-like fantasy as the school’s faculty members become “Joseph’s” characters.

As in the revival (which was seen in Los Angeles with Michael Damian in the title role before it traveled to Broadway), “Joseph’s” world is cartoonish and comically off-center. At home in the two-dimensional yellow sands of Canaan, Joseph and his 11 brothers tend to dummy sheep, while in Egypt, the Elvis-like Pharaoh (whose Egyptian-style skirt is nicely complemented by blue-suede shoes) rock ‘n’ rolls in front of a sphinx with roving eyes.

Osmond gives himself over to the fun, affecting the snotty, oblivious superiority of a spoiled child so well that you can hardly blame Joseph’s brothers for selling him into slavery.

Teasingly pushing the envelope of acceptable family entertainment, the film, like the stage revival, enjoys stripping Joseph to his skivvies (Lose the dreamcoat; we want to see skin!), and the lascivious Mrs. Potiphar (a perfectly typecast Collins) and her ladies of the night all appear to be revealing more of their breasts than they really are (Are those pasties? Junior, don’t look!). There’s nothing that will scar the children for life, though, so don’t worry.

The centerpiece of a new format called “PBS Showcase,” “Joseph” is paired in this three-hour block with a rebroadcast of the 1985 “Great Performances” presentation of Lloyd Webber’s “Requiem,” featuring Placido Domingo and Sarah Brightman. Annoyingly, though, the connecting “interviews” with Lloyd Webber and Rice, interwoven with production clips, are little more than an infomercial for such projects as the new Bible-meets-”Rent” Broadway revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which also will make its way to “Great Performances.”

* The “PBS Showcase” featuring “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” airs tonight at 8 on KCET and KVCR. The network has rated it TV-G (suitable for all ages).