HERE’S a musical that’s made a good many people purr with delight over the years, not least among them composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh.
And had poet TS Eliot still been alive he would probably have been pretty chipper as well, the musical being based on his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
It seemed a strange idea in1981, but 35 years on Cats has proved its pedigree, and the original creative team of Trevor Nunn, director; Gillian Lynne, choreographer and John Napier, designer, have revised as well as revived the show. Napier’s impressive junkyard set spills into the auditorium as the cats gather from all directions for the annual Jellicle ball, when one of their number will be selected to travel to the Heaviside Layer.
There is energetic song and dance show from the streetwise, rapping of Marcquelle Ward’s Rum Tum Tugger; cat-burgling antics byMungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (Joe Henry and Emily Langham) and Greg Castiglioni and Leonie Thom’s ’s reminiscences of Gus, the theatre cat. Marianne Benedict’s Grizabella, looking more like Joanna Lumley’s Patsy on a bad day, is on great feline form with the show’s most notable number, Memory. But top of the bill is Shiv Rabheru’s acrobatic and balletic energy as Mr Mistoffelees.
Kevin Steven-Jones’ Old Deuteronomy must make the final choice and Grizabella ascends skywards, like Cats, to be born again – a company show with everyone on purr-fect form.
n Runs until Saturday, September 24. Box Office: 0844-871-3022. ATGtickets.com/Sunderland
Laurence Sach
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