Gorton Replaces Day in the West End's Dreamcoat

Darren Day unexpectedly left the West End production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last week due to vocal problems. The title role is now being played by Simon Gorton.

Day had only a few television credits under his belt when he got his big break in 1993, filling in for Philip Schofield for three weeks in Joseph at the London Palladium. The buzz on Day's performance was terrific and his career took off. In the spring of 1994, he appeared in the successful national tour of the tuner. In 1997, he again played Joseph in an international tour. His other musical theater credits include Great Expectations, Copacabana, Summer Holiday, Grease, Carousel and The Rocky Horror Show. Possibly best known to many for his time in the tabloids his various relationships constantly make their pages and his time on I'm A Celebrity: Get Me Out Of Here!, Day received the Variety Club of Great Britain's Sir James Carreras Award for Outstanding New Talent of 1995.

Day entered this production Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a limited engagement in 2003 and returned to the musical in February of this year with his then fiancée, actress Suzanne Shaw. The two recently split and have engaged in a public war of words in Britain's tabloid media. Shaw continues to play the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Gorton has played Joseph numerous times in the past. Not only has he stepped into this production before, but he also appeared in a tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 2003. His other theater credits include Jesus Christ Superstar, The Pirates of Penzance, Rubber Legs, A Slice of Saturday Night, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, My Fair Lady, As You Like It and Cymbeline.

Both Gorton and Shaw are expected to remain in the musical until it ends its run at the New London Theatre on April 2.