(I’ve modified this after a helpful comment by Abbey! Thanks Abbey!)
One more of those Andrew Lloyd Weber’s classics that is worth watching as well as listening to! The make-up is just superb! I haven’t got the opportunity to see it live...but the show on the TV was good enough! The music is very characteristic of Weber...and the lyrics are also fantastic. However, what elevates this entire musical is the make-up! Cats interacting with each other through song...it is amazing!!
The whole musical can be summed up very simply thus: A bunch of cats come together every year for a celebration--’The Jellicle Ball’. At this ball, each cat sings about his/her achievements. The names of the cats, the achievements they speak (er...sing) about, their costumes that match their achievements and their names...all these are fantastic! There is Asparagus (called Gus), and Rum-Tum-Tugger (the ’curious’ cat...who sings...’if you offer me house, I only want a flat...but if you put me in a flat, I rather have a house...’), Skimbleshanks (the ’Railway’ cat...the one without whom ’’the night mail just can’t go!’’) , and Alonzo, Jellylorum, JennyAnyDots (she just ’’...sits and sits and sits and sits’’), Etcetera, Grizabella (the ’Glamour’ cat...who ’’hesitates towards you in the light of dawn, which opens on her like a grin...’), Bustopher Jones (’He’s not skin and bones...infact he’s remarkably fat!!’), Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (a ’notorious couple of cats’....who are ’’Knock-about clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats’’, Old Deutronomy (the cat who ’’has lived many lives in succession’’, and last of all there is Macavity (you would have heard of this guy...he is the ’Mystery cat’, ’’...there’s no-one like Macavity. He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, And when you reach the scene of crime, Macavity’s not there’’).
Infact, the second song in this musical is about the Naming of Cats. It lists out all the names of cats in the play...(dont expect to see the name of your cat there! But if you are looking for an outrageous name for your cat...this place maybe it!)
As many have mentioned, this entire musical has been based on T.S. Eliot’s poems on cats. Each of the pieces are simply superb, and indeed well written. he must have observed a variety of cats carefully to get all this together. You must check out the lyrics sometime just for the beauty of it! Lyrics can be found at the following site: https://members.fortunecity.com/starrkaat/catslyrics.html. The poems from Eliot’s original book ’The Old Possum’s book of Practical Cats’ is here: https://angelfire.com/ns/trifika/OldPossum.htm
I would also go on to recommend the following musicals by the same Weber and Rice (I think Tim Rice is also involved in these!):
Starlight Express
Phantom of the Opera
I havent seen these either, but the music itself and the story line seems to be way out of this world!! If you get the chance...dont miss these!!