There were Egyptian princesses and dancers, cloak wearers, shepherds (with their sheep) and even a hockey team dressed as the dream coat itself.

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"We love Joseph. We know all the words," said Alison Spinks, who was attending with three generations of Joseph lovers. She and her sister Nicky Cresswell had dressed up as Joseph characters and learned the songs when they were girls.

"I've had it all my life," said Alison's mum (and shepherd for the evening) Hilary Webster.

Now Hilary's grandchildren are Joseph fans too.

"Joseph is ace," said 10 year old Gracie (a desert maiden for the evening). The family are all sing along fans, and have visited Joseph before, as well as the Rocky Horror Show.

"This is better than Rocky Horror," said Gracie.

The performance is based on the original film of the stage show, starring Donny Osmond (and is therefore very popular with a certain demographic), along with supporting cast of Christopher Biggins, Joan Collins and Richard Attenborough.

Audience members are encouraged to dress up, and are led through a brief vocal coaching session before the film starts, complete with full lyrical subtitles.

The show began in 1999 in London with a sing along version of The Sound of Music, which grew in popularity until Sing A Long A began touring around the world to Amsterdam, Dublin, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Stockholm and Sheffield.

Frank Skinner, Alan Yentob, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Dan Ackroyd have all been spotted singa longing in the past, and in 2001 Elton John and partner David Furnish hired the show for a birthday party, including Lulu, Janet Street Porter, Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys, Hugh Grant and Joan Collins in nun's habits or wimples.

In Sheffield, Joseph was staged on Wednesday night, following the Sound of Music on Tuesday, with up to 40% of the audience arriving as nuns, said Lyceum staff.

The Sound of Music is always popular, but recent TV coverage has increased the audience for Joseph too, it seemed, as "Go Go Go Joseph" and "Any Dream will Do" rang out over the Crucible construction works.

"We're here for our works do," said Beverly Hempstall from Walesby school near Newark. "You could say it's a bit of a team building exercise," she laughed, in her home made technicolor dream coat.

Chris Gibbs was also taking part with a team of singers, this time from St Chad's Church in Woodseats.

"We thought it would be a good laugh," said Chris, aka Reuben the shepherd for the evening. "Joseph is still popular because it's a great story. It's got drama, humour and great songs, dude."