CATS THE MUSICAL 2025

By Diana Simmonds

June 21 2025

CATS the Musical, John Frost/Crossroad Live, at the Theatre Royal, 20 June-6 September 2025. Touring to Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne. Photography by Daniel Boud

It’s quite the milestone: Andrew Lloyd Webber is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first Cats, his revolutionary cherry-pick of T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, in which a mob of all-singing, all-dancing felines search in vain for a plot. All the while they perform Gillian Lynne’s instantly famous choreography, they unleash the earworm about the Jellicle cats. Then, Memory, the song that went to No.1 in Finland, that made Elaine Paige, and which has since been recorded by more than 600 artists, and is one of the top show tunes ever.

The Australian premiere of Cats was in Sydney in 1985, and that evening, a monster storm dumped on the city. George Street was ankle-deep, and outside the Theatre Royal, King Street was a raging torrent. It didn’t stop the show nor the heartrending performance of Debra Byrne as Grizabella. In more ways than one, it was an unforgettable night.

Now, Cats is back in the same theatre – since refurbished, so 2025’s moggies don’t have to deal with the rumble of trains passing below. There’s still no plot, the Jellicle Cats are still as hopefully endearing and colourfully multi-ethnic as ever, and yet another generation of wide-eyed little girls is aching to love it all, with lyrics variously by Eliot, Trevor Nunn, and Richard Stilgoe.

Producer John Frost, for Crossroad Live, has let rip in securing a uniformly brilliant company of singer-dancer-actors for this classic of the two-song sub-genre of musical theatre. (Lloyd Webber had learnt the lesson on rationing in 1978 after he and lyricist Tim Rice packed Evita chock-full of great songs and never did it again. Meanwhile, a somewhat controversial new production of Evita has just opened in London and crowds are gagging for it, while gagging at ticket prices.)

This Cats, however, is value for money and bursting with talent. As well as the obvious – Todd McKenney as winsome Asparagus and Bustopher Jones, magnificent Mark Vincent as Old Deuteronomy, Lucy Maunder as sexy Jellylorum, Des Flanagan as rambunctious Rum Tum Tugger, Jarrod Draper as saucy Munkustrap, and Leigh Archer as a winning Gumbie Cat and Jennyandots, there’s the relatively unsung Chaska Halliday, as Cassandra, who is one of those performers to catch the eye and attention no matter what she’s doing – even nothing. And the show-stopping Axel Alvarez as electrifying ballet cat Mr Mistoffelees.

What’s notable, however, is that Cats is now dated in the way Gilbert & Sullivan is dated: quaintly of its time and thus quaintly entertaining. However, most striking is the influence of Hayes Theatre Co over the past decade in raising up, educating, and showcasing a generation of musical theatre performers and audiences. These days, there’s no such thing as a dodgy chorus line or a sub-par vocal.

The standard in the Cats company is stratospheric, and it has to be because it must carry the night more than most. As the grimalkins prowl the grotty, metro-detritus of perpetually night-time Bloomsbury, the voices and dance are thrilling. A bit odd, nevertheless, that so many sing in the accents of Broadway when glottal-stopped Cockney would be more appropriate. Wo’eva.

Nitpick aside, Cats looks as good as one might hope (set design by John Napier, lighting by Howard Eaton). The hidden live band, led by Paul White, is as tight and on point as we would expect. Assuming Gillian Lynne isn’t choreographing from the grave and that Trevor Nunn didn’t make the flight over, “associate director and choreographer for Australia” Chrissie Cartwright has done a fine job.

Finally, however, there’s no Cats without Grizabella. The one-time show cat, now scraggy old kitty, must provoke tears not once but twice. First, when she sends the audience off to the interval with a beautifully subdued taster of Memory, the second time when she has to rattle rafters and stop traffic with the fabled heartbreaker. In Gabriyel Thomas, we have a great Grizabella: a dramatic contralto and the chutzpah to act the song, vocal breaks and all. Spectacular!