Cats review – a new day has begun with Drew McOnie’s magical revival

Cats is without doubt the weirdest musical ever to enjoy a 21-year run in the West End and 18 years on Broadway. The combination of T S Eliot’s eccentric story about different cats coming together at the Jellicle Ball and some of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most swooning, phantasmagorical music lends it the quality of a fever dream. Or in the case of Tom Hooper’s disastrous 2019 film adaptation, a nightmare.

Drew McOnie, artistic director of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, ran away from school to join a touring production. Cats is one of his favourite musicals. And as director and choreographer, he has lent into the sheer strangeness of the show, creating a misty, mysterious world that is pure fantasy.

It’s a version of Cats that is much more lyrical and dance-driven than, for example, the current Jellicle Ball version on Broadway. And in the setting of Regent’s Park, with the night-time shadows lengthening around the huge Jellicle moon that is the focus of Jessica Hung Han Yun’s subtly toned lighting, it is often truly enchanting.

It’s also quite long, as things tend to proceed at a stately pace as the cats, in Sami Fendall’s design, assemble in sleek body suits and tails around a great bronze spiral where they can prowl and sit and pose as the action (what there is of it) unfolds. McOnie’s movement for the cats is sleek and balletically delicate; their bodies unfurl slowly, each motion from the tip of their fingers to the points of their feet, mimicking the way muscles run gently through real cats’ bodies, rippling beneath the skin.

These slinky groupings make a vivid contrast with more acrobatic leaps, turns and rolls that form the routines when Old Deuteronomy (a strong-voiced and tender Melanie La Barrie) arrives and begins to decide which cat will get a second chance at life in the Heaviside Layer. (I know.)

The plot, famously, is not the point. What matters is the numbers for the individual cats in the frame, and these are delivered with aplomb. Gary Wilmot’s theatre cat Gus is surrounded by adoring kitten fans and seems as vague as his memories until he unleashes his full force in the cleverly staged “Growltiger’s Last Stand”, complete with pirates brandishing cutlasses and a sail across the moon.

The mischievous Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are, in the hands of Danny Nattrass and Briana Craig, sparkly, swift-footed acrobats; Bustopher Jones (Elliot Broadfoot), who likes his food, has a hoop skirt of roundness beneath a pristine satin shirt; Matthew Caputo’s Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, has a sequin-highlighted orange uniform and a real train. Most excitingly, Jet Yau’s Mister Mistoffelees is a boneless breakdancer, turning on his head while throwing fireworks into the sky, while Diante Lodge’s Macavity actually sets the stage alight with real fire.

The costumes are both stylised and cleverly textured; fake fur is used sparingly. The makeup is glittery and unreal. It’s all silkily performed.

Above all, Taziva-Faye Katsande, the cover taking the role of Grizabella on press night because Rachael Wooding was unwell, seized her star is born moment by delivering a rich and raw version of “Memory” that sent the audience out into the night humming along happily. The oddest musical works its magic again.