Revisiting Cats

Until tonight I have only seen the musical “Cats” once, with James many years ago in London. So long ago that it was before we had children. I remember that the costumes were beautiful but the musical itself didn’t make a huge impression on me, it didn’t really have a proper plot and just wasn’t one of my favourites.

Recently one of my former colleagues, Karen, invited me and James to come along with her and her husband George to watch the Pantheon Club perform Cats at the King’s Theatre this evening. The Pantheon Club is an amateur dramatic society but their productions are of a very high standard, almost to professional level. Our main motivation was to cheer on another former colleague who is a keen actor and dancer - Colin whom we watched in Footloose in the Autumn. I was up for dinner and a fun evening, so we booked a table at the Steak and Cherry in Sauchiehall Street which was very handy for the theatre. The meal was decent but the service was a bit slow so we ended up hurrying up the stairs in the theatre with only three minutes to go. The musical was much as I remembered. Based on the cat poems of T. S. Eliot, it’s a series of musical sketches over the course of a night in the lives of a bunch of cats. The music was ok; not Lloyd Webber’s best I think. However the choreography was excellent and the enthusiastic cast brought it all to life. I enjoyed it, especially the second half. Colin was fantastic and had several main parts including those of Mungojerrie and Mr Mistoffelees. We gave him a special cheer at the end. I stand by my opinion about Cats, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would and it was a lovely evening.