Musical mogul Andrew Lloyd Webber is helping the county's diabetes and kidney failure patients by donating proceeds from his stage shows to the Oxford Transplant Campaign.

His West End hit, The Sound of Music, has already generated £100,000 for the Churchill Hospital's £5m appeal for a new unit, while the new production of Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat is set to bring in another £56,000.

The Oxford Transplant Campaign, for a new building at the site in Old Road, Headington, was launched last year to raise a third of the £15m to make it a reality.

Once opened, it will have double the capacity of the current 10-bed ward for kidney and pancreas transplant patients, with 20 single rooms, and will house researchers now working at the nearby John Radcliffe Hospital.

Lord Lloyd-Webber became patron of the campaign after being asked to help by the fund's chairman David Mason.

The maestro's new productions have received massive media coverage because their stars are chosen by BBC1 TV viewers.

Last year, Connie Fisher won the lead role in The Sound of Music, in the show How do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? The production has played to sell-out crowds at London's Palladium Theatre.

Transplant centre fundraisers were given 800 tickets, costing £125 each, for the gala premier, which included a Champagne reception after the show.

Lord Lloyd-Webber has made the same offer for his latest production, which is due to open on Thursday, August 2, once a Joseph is picked during the TV show Any Dream Will Do.

Four contestants are left - down from 12, which included 17-year-old Anthony Hansen, from Steventon, who was knocked out earlier in the series.

At the gala premiere, to be staged at the smaller Adelphi Theatre, 450 tickets will be sold to raise money for the transplant appeal.

Lord Lloyd-Webber said: "As a patron of the Oxford Transplant Campaign, I've been thrilled with the substantial progress made over the last 18 months.

"The Sound of Music premiere was a resounding success and I look forward enormously to repeating this success with the OTC gala premiere of Joseph.

"I'm most impressed with the plans for the new unit, which will obviously be a tremendous boost to kidney patients, many of whom have been hoping and praying for such an important development at Oxford."

The transplant centre was set up in 1990 to help patients who needed new kidneys following renal failure. In recent years it has started carrying out pancreas transplants.

It is now the busiest pancreas transplant unit in the world, and operates on 120 kidney and pancreas patients a year.

The new centre will allow surgeons to care for more people, and work with scientists on new treatments and therapies.

It is hoped building work will start next year and be completed by 2010.

The Churchill's clinical director for transplantation Prof Peter Friend said: "Our work is life-transforming for the young people we treat.

"We're taking young people who have a miserable existence and doing something about it which is really gratifying. The results are extremely good.

"The success of transplantation in Oxford has certainly caused a problem in terms of clinical space. We're constantly borrowing beds from other departments.

"We're very much an academic site, so we want to bring the research together with the practice. Evidence shows that if clinical staff meet and integrate with the scientists, more research problems can be dealt with."

Prof Friend added: "We raised a considerable amount of money through the gala premiere and Lord Lloyd-Webber has been very generous by doing that for us.

"Obviously, the fact that both shows have received publicity on the television has made them very popular, so his support is superb."

Campaign chairman David Mason added: "The magnificent evening we enjoyed with our premiere last year of The Sound of Music was, I think most people would agree, an event to remember.

"The show has been a smash hit and we were so lucky Andrew helped us out with this, as it is sold out months and months ahead.

"I have no hesitation in saying that Joseph will be the same, if not more so."

Anyone who would like to apply for the tickets to the premiere of Joseph should call 07776 233067 or send an email message to campaign@oxfordtransplant.org.uk