Stunning Cats due in December

The big cats have come and conquered in The Lion King. It is now time to begin the wait for the little cats, the house kind or the alley type or the ferals, who are geared to conquer the world’s box-office in December. The movie is Cats, the adaptation of the Tony award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber with story and lyrics from the poems by T. S. Eliott, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The trailer dropped last week and it is star-studded, stunning and most controversial.

Cats opened in the West End in 1981 and proved to be a huge success at the tills. It was No. 1 in the box-office for years until Les Miserablés came along. It was long-running, over 20 years in London. It was a success with the critics and won both the Laurence Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Best Musical. And now, there is the movie with a December playdate directed by Tom Hooper who also megged Les Miz and The King’s Speech.

Cats is about a group of cats who call themselves the Jellicles. Every year, they get together in a ball where they perform at their best. It is there that they choose who among them will be given the privilege of going to cat heaven and then will be reborn. Cats have nine lives so, I guess, the poet Eliott came up with this explanation of how they renew those lives. There is a bit of complication with a naughty tom and a kidnapping but there is not much else to the tale. 

Taylor Swift as Bombalurina.

Lloyd Webber’s adaptation is brilliant if you like poetry and if you have read the book. Make sure you do before you watch. The singing and the dancing are superb, but then only one song stands out, Memory, which has been recorded by many artists including Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow. The design is excellent although at times, the characters or I should say cats look like mascots in sweaty fur-costumes roaming supermarkets to sell cereals for kids. It was also almost three hours long.

 So Cats, the musical is very much like cats, the animals. You either love them or hate them. Maybe I will love the movie version. The trailer is great with kitties of all sorts singing and dancing and also stretching and undulating in a neon-lighted set. And what do you know the short-haired cats have digitally added body fur and are not wearing costumes. Do you think there will be complaints from the prissy-noses around would take those kitties to task for their almost nude, body hugging costumes?

Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella who sings Memory.

 Maybe the famous faces behind the whiskers will distract those people enough and keep them away from the strong, lithe figures. And what faces they are. Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella who sings a fantastic Memory; Sir Ian McKellen as Gus the Theater Cat; Dame Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy; James Corden as Bustopher Jones; Idris Elba as Macavity; Taylor Swift as Bombalurina; Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots; Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger; and Francesca Hayward of the Royal Ballet, whose dancing can bring audiences to tears and who will get to sing a new composition by Lloyd Webber as Victoria. 

Come to think of it though, as I watched the trailer again, I started thinking about how moviegoers would feel seeing those familiar heads with pointy ears, whiskers and pink noses without fangs but with human teeth. That seems very strange. But then cats are strange creatures and I trust producer Steven Spielberg and Hooper will be able to make this Jellicle variety in Cats incredibly fascinating.

James Corden as Bustopher Jones.

Speaking of Spielberg, he is the director of the now in production remake of the musical West Side Story starring Ansel Elgort. Musical lovers can also look forward to Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, American Idiot with Billy Ray Armstrong, The Prom with Awkwafina and Meryl Streep, plus In The Heights, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Guys and Dolls, Gypsy, Dear Evan Hansen, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jekyll and Hyde and, of course, Disney’s The Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey, James Corden, James Earl Jones and rumors have it, Harry Styles as Prince Eric.

What a relief that musicals are back. We can certainly use magic and wonder and lots of beautiful music as a respite from all those superhero adventures we are being subjected to.