Cats performed with boundless energy

If ever there was a show that shouldn't be missed, it's this production of Cats.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's feline fantasy, based on TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats plus additional material by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe, first debuted in 1981 and has become a classic of musical theatre.

On opening night in Palmerston North, Jellicle Cats inveigled their way into the audience before the musical started, creating an atmosphere that built through the evening.

Choreographer Teesh Szabo, with assistant choreographer Cara Hesselin, has created an extraordinary dance extravaganza – and the ensemble cast carries it off with boundless energy in one spectacularly-framed scene after another. Their group singing is augmented by a chorus of offstage vocalists.

The familiar story, spun around the special night of the year when the Jellicle Cats tribe gathers, has wonderfully-named characters: Rum Tum Tugger, Skimbleshanks, Munkustrap, mischievous Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, magical Mr Mistoffolees, bad Macavity, Gus the Theatre Cat, and many more. Each has their moment to shine. Giving focus to the plotline is Old Deuteronomy (David Lea), ancient leader of the cats, who must decide which cat is worthy to ascend to the Heaviside Layer to be reborn; and Grizabella (Joanne Sale) once a glamour cat, now aged and shunned by the tribe. Sale gets to sing, as memorably as its name, the show's most well-known ballad, Memory.

In this production, everyone is a star, proving again how fortunate we are to have such professional-quality talent in our midst.

(Tina White)