Andrew Lloyd Webber’s longstanding musical Cats is playing a summer season at The Winter Gardens and although it’s been around for a few years, this new ensemble company with Jane McDonald as the obligatory celebrity cast member bring a beautiful modernity to the piece.
On arrival into the auditorium, the stage is set with a complex fabrication of giant-sized junk. We are immediately dwarfed by old coke bottles, sardine tins and other detritus that pings us into a place where we can identify with human-sized cats; we are cleverly made complicit with them from the start. This is a useful device because at its essence, the show is simply a cataloguing of different cat’s traits and personalities and any narrative is purely a linking device between each of these cat characters.
Based on a collection of poems written by T S Eliot called Old Possum’s Book of Practicle Cats, one by one we are introduced to a faction of felines called The Jellicles and it is explained what has brought them together and what sets them apart. Amongst others, we meet the marvellously mischievous brother and sister pair (Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer), the wise Old Deuteronomy (master of ceremonies), the truly magical Mr Mistoffelees as well as the downright demonic Macavity cat.
The character of Rum Tum Tugger has been given a modern twist which puritan musical fans may balk at as he takes the stage in crotch-grabbing R+B singer style; rapping through his section with the vigour of a young urban cool cat. The younger audience members loved him but this update also helps us to feel that this is genuinely a new show – created for this run and not something that is haunted by ghosts of Musical stars of past.
On that note, it is Grizabella, played by Ms Macdonald that adds the emotional thrust to the piece. She is, of course, tasked with that unenviable job of making the well-known song Memories sound like her own rather than just a karaoke version of Elaine Paige’s classic recording. I’m delighted to report that she absolutely nails it! To the point of hairs standing up on the back of your neck and involuntary mid-show standing ovations – no mean feat in a 3,000-seater auditorium.
Ms Macdonald deserves the kudos of pulling off this moment but the energy that exudes from the rest of the company, the excellently observed cat-like behaviour, the slinkily gorgeous litheness highlighted by unforgiving costumes, the playful interaction with audiences; these are all the reasons to go and see the show that has outlived many more than nine lives yet still lands firmly on its feet.
Don’t miss out on this slice of musical history; Cats The Musical is playing in The Opera House at The Winter Gardens until Saturday 5 September. Tickets start at £20 and are available now from www.wintergardensblackpool.co.uk
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