The original filmed version of the musical Cats, made 20 years before Tom Hooper’s much-mauled box-office cat-astrophe, is to be streamed online. The film will be made available for free on YouTube as part of The Shows Must Go On!, a series of recorded Andrew Lloyd Webber productions that have included Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera among others.
The 1998 film of Cats stars Elaine Paige as Grizabella, the role she originated when the musical premiered in 1981 and which brought her a top 10 hit that year with the song Memory. The cast includes John Mills as Gus the Theatre Cat, Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy and Susie McKenna as Jennyanydots. It is a streamlined version of the stage production, filmed without a live audience at London’s Adelphi theatre.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose new West End version of Cinderella is one of the many productions delayed by theatre’s coronavirus shutdown, has been playing his own compositions for fans on Twitter in recent weeks. On Sunday, he performed Skimbleshanks’s song.
Cats will be streamed at 7pm on 15 May and is available for 24 hours in the UK and 48 hours elsewhere. Quoting the musical’s famous West End slogan, Paige encouraged her Twitter followers to watch it “as it won’t be for ‘now and forever’”.
