The result is Cats, just one of the C words closely associated with Lloyd Webber, which follows the story of the Jellicle Cats, a group of London felines who gather once a year to party, describe themselves to each other, arrange themselves in a Human Centipede and repeat the word "Jellicle" what they hope is enough times to make you think it means something.
At the end of the night Old Deuteronomy (Melanie La Barrie) will choose one cat to be reincarnated, and nobody really mentions the fact that for this to happen the "winner" will have to die first so we just go along with the idea that this is something to aim for. This... let's call it a plot, why not, is the device by which Eliot's largely unconnected poems about various quirky cats are strung together.
So early on we meet Rum Tum Tugger (Jaydon Vijn,) a "curious cat" because he's really contrary and always wants the opposite of whatever his owners give him and ma'am that is not a curious cat, that is a cat operating on factory settings. Other notable characters include Matthew Caputo's lively Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat and Gary Wilmot's hammy old thesp Gus the Theatre Cat, who gets a second number to himself as he relives a celebrated old role.
The show is as quintessentially 1980s as crack but only about 90% as harmful to your mental health, and for all that Drew McOnie's production is a new and fresh one the whole thing does still leave you wondering how this became quite such a global juggernaut. Granted, it's one of the last ALW musicals where he actually wrote a different tune for every song so it does have a sense of frantic variety. And I will give him his due in that the famous 11 O'Clock number "Memory" (with lyrics by original director Trevor Nunn) is one of the rare musical theatre songs that absolutely earns its showboating vocals, something understudy Taziva-Faye Katsande nails as Grizabella.
Ultimately Cats is one of those musicals built around dance, so much so its original home was renamed after its choreographer Gillian Lynne, so having McOnie take it on was one of the main attractions for seeing it again as an adult, and he certainly puts his cast through their paces. In fact I preferred the second act, where more of the titular characters don't actually sing on their own songs, allowing Dianté Lodge's Macavity (full name: Phil Macavity) and especially Jet Yau's breakdancing magician Mr Mistoffeles to steal the show through movement alone. Although McOnie never quite succeeds in getting the cast to lick their own arseholes, so the physicality isn't completely accurate.
At the end Grizabella goes off to be, I don't know, tied into a bag and thrown into the Thames, like I say it's never quite made clear how she's going to be ritually sacrificed, and while Sami Fendall's design does give it a slightly grungier aesthetic I was left thinking that while I can absolutely see why kids would still love this, I'm not sure how its original iteration captured so many adults as well. As Jim said on the way out, "I saw this 40 years ago and I've seen it now. In another 40 years I'll be dead so at least I won't have to see it again."
Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber, T.S. Eliot, Richard Stilgoe and Trevor Nunn* is booking until the 19th of September at the Open Air Theatre, Regents Park; then continuing on tour to Plymouth, Hull, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Llandudno, Glasgow, Nottingham, Canterbury, Sunderland, Aberdeen, Norwich, Belfast, Dublin, Oxford, Southampton, Edinburgh, Bradford, Liverpool, Woking, Cardiff, Milton Keynes and Newcastle.
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Mark Senior.
*the latter two seem to have been completely wiped off the writing credits for this revival, I wonder what they did to offend His Lordship
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