There's a thrill in seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber's legendary, anthropomorphic 1981 musical in this magical open-air setting – indoor cats become outdoor cats! – but my goodness this is a silly show. It transforms the comic poems T.S. Eliot wrote for his godchildren into a song cycle loosely held together by a resurrection/redemption story. More importantly, the stalking, preening, high-stepping, back-arching moves of a huge cast pretending to be pussies seems to speak to audiences on a primal, if not infantile, level. Watching this sleek revival directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie I was unpleasantly reminded of George Galloway licking his paws in the Big Brother house.
A Circular Stage and a Giant 'C'
Fittingly for a show where musical themes loop and recur, it opens on a circular stage where a giant, oxidised letter 'C' cups an illuminated full moon. The opening glissade of descending and ascending scales embeds itself immediately into the brain, as leotarded actors with prosthetic ears and tails slink down the aisles, studying the audience with disdainful curiosity.
We're at the Jellicle Ball, an annual convocation of superior felines. Here the hieratic elder Old Deuteronomy (Melanie La Barrie) chooses a candidate to ascend to the Heaviside Layer, thence to be reborn on Earth with a new identity. Or something like that. Really, this is just a useful framework on which to hang character sketches of variously haughty, sybaritic and vicious animals. Here's Grizabella the sometime "glamour cat", haunting the pack with her unspoken shame and belting out the score's anthemic hit, Memory. Here are the enigmatic Mr. Mistoffelees, the roguish Rum Tum Tugger and the lazy Jennayanydots (I can feel my brain regressing as I write these names).
Pop-Rock Songs and Quaint Verses
Apart from Memory, the songs mostly default to pop-rock, with digressions into light jazz and nursery-rhyme novelty. I think there's even a whisker of reggae in Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats, which stresses different syllables in different lines in a way that's irksome but ear-wormy.
Eliot's verses hark quaintly back to a time when theatres and steam trains had their own pet mousers, and to forgotten boozers and restaurants in Tottenham Court Road and St James's. This is a world where the mischievous Kensington residents Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer could plausibly speak like Ealing comedy cockneys.
A Revival's Success Hinges on McOnie's Choreography
Originally directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats ran for 21 years at the New London Theatre, later renamed for Lynne. This third West End revival inevitably stands or falls on the way McOnie marshals his 20-plus troupe. Eliot's Practical Cats are acrobatical and balletical here, winding around each other in displays of PG flirtation or threat. There's a sinewy grace to the flow of the action, and a surprise interlude of dynamic breakdancing from Mistoffelees (Jet Yau).
Kudos is due to Taziva-Faye Katsande, who stepped up to play Grizabella on opening night, blissfully undaunted by the monolithic status of Memory. As the piratical Growltiger, Gary Wilmott turns up and does his business as cleanly and efficiently as ever. I enjoyed the arch double-act of Katie Dunsden's Bombalurina and Millie O'Connell's Demeter.
Atmosphere Conjured by Smoke and Lighting
There's no set beyond the Big 'C' so atmosphere is conjured by smoke and lighting, and by the ensemble's bodies combining at times into a rippling spine. On his exit, the elusive criminal Macavity ignites a ring of fire which, again unpleasantly, reminded me that there's supposedly a "butthole cut" of Tom Hooper's derided 2019 film of Cats, where all the kitties have CGI anuses.
You've got to admire Lloyd Webber for his dedication to reworking his past hits, particularly after that scarring cinematic disaster. McOnie's version is probably more pedestrian and safe than the drag/ballroom adaptation that recently wowed New York. You've also got to admire his lordship's ability to divine or shape public taste. After early successes with Tim Rice and Don Black he madly chose to partner with a dead poet. With its stripped back set and costumes and it's fourth-wall breaking felines Cats was radical for its time but became the West End's longest runner (until overtaken by Les Miserables) and bolstered the fortunes of Eliot's publisher, Faber. It's also, however skilfully mounted, deeply, deeply silly. To 19 Sept, openairtheatre.com.
