Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats gets hip-hop twist as it returns to West End

 
Purr-fect: a performer in the touring version of Cats, which returns to the London stage this year (Picture: Alessandro Pinna)
8 July 2014

TS Eliot’s Rum Tum Tugger will be turned into a hip-hop cat as Andrew Lloyd Webber revamps his hit show for a return to the West End.

The composer is re-working the Rum Tum Tugger song — with words from Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats — as a rap number for a new production of Cats, 12 years after the show left the London stage following a 21-year run.

Lord Lloyd-Webber, 66, said the song, along with Growltiger’s Last Stand, was one he was never happy with so he was seizing the chance to revamp it.

“Hopefully it’s going to be a brand new Cats,” he said. “I’m going to make Rum Tum Tugger a contemporary street cat and he has to do hip-hop. That will be a completely new way of doing it.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that Rum Tum Tugger was possibly the first ever rap song. TS Eliot clearly anticipated rapping in his metres.”

The new production at the London Palladium this December had been under discussion for some time. The original creative team from 1981 — director Trevor Nunn, choreographer Gillian Lynne and designer John Napier — are reuniting to create it.

Lord Lloyd-Webber said they had always had a strong bond: “We were united by the fact that everybody thought we were stark staring crazy to be doing a musical with human beings as cats and cats who danced when we were not considered to be very good at that in the West End.”

They had a “bumpy” opening, with half the investment missing. This time round make-up artists will be on hand to paint children’s faces and there will be a photo-booth, where the audience can be pictured as cats.

“I hope it’s going to be fun for kids at Christmas and introduce them to the world of TS Eliot,” Lord Lloyd-Webber said.

Dame Gillian Lynne, 88, said Cats was special because the dancing told the story: “It’s not like any other show at all.”

Cats will run from December 6 to February 28. catsthemusical.com/london

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