CATS! The Musical

One of the best things about being a scruffy student in London was the special student rates for the theatre. Or, that being a student in London gave you enough time to line up and wait for half-price tickets.

The first musical I saw was 42nd Street, with the part of Peggy Sawyer taken by a certain Ms Catherine Zeta-Jones. It got me hooked on the excitement and glamour of Broadway and I swung on one (1) lamp post on the way home.

Cats followed soon after. There is no musical quite like Cats - it is not the story (there is no story), but the music, the dance, the set and the sheer feline charm. I was pretty familiar with the music (borrowed and copied a friend's tape - yes those were the days of tapees) but Cats brought home to me what a complete theatre experience really was. Looking at the set before the show started was a good opportunity to see the details - the huge tire, up-sized so that a human on it would be on the same scale as cat on a real tire. But once the music began and the cats started slinking on the stage - the set just receded into the background and all eyes were on the cats.

I just saw Cats again last Sunday near the start of its run in Singapore. I must say I was slightly disappointed that the stage was not rotating and the set less exciting (the tire was barely visible at the back of the stage). But as each cat character was introduced to the audience, as they sang and danced before me, I was totally captivated (and singing along in my head).

And of course the cats themselves! Mostly from the poems in T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, the inspiration for my own cat poems. I have tried many times also to call my cats by three different names but I can't compete with Jennyanydots or Rum Tum Tugger (Dinky Darling and Wily Winky don't have the same ring to it). Maybe one day. My only other critique (aside from the slight disappointment over the set) was that the totally boring song, "The Pekes and the Pollicles", could have been dropped. It is after all about dogs, not cats.

Cats is indeed a musical "now and forever". I can't quite say that I enjoyed it as much as the first time (I was still a young impressionable sua ku student then) but it was still so fresh and full of fun and joy. Here are some clips from Youtube in case any one wants to watch/ jog a memory or two.