Cats

Director: Tom Hooper

Starring:
Idris Elba
Taylor Swift
Judy Dench
Ian McKellen
Rebel Wilson
James Corden
Jennifer Hudson
Jason DeRulo
(the list goes on…)

I’m not entirely sure what monstrosity I have just witnessed but I’m concerned I won’t ever be able to listen to the original cast recording of Cats the same way again. I’m going to give it 1 star, and it pains me because really a film made to this low standard doesn’t deserve any stars but that 1 star goes out to the supporting cast who gave brilliant dance performances, it’s a shame that for some of them this will be their big screen break, they deserve some recognition for that. If one member of the “star studded” lead cast even thinks about claiming that 1 star as their own, they can think again. 

Cats is renowned by thespians as being a bit of a weird musical, with not much plot to speak of and tight lycra costumes galore it’s a bit of a spectacle. That being said, I first saw it when I was about 7 years old and have loved it ever since. Based on the book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S Eliot, it is first and foremost a dance show with next to no storyline. Tom Hooper and his team decided to take that work of art, manipulate it to try and appeal to a wider audience by casting some of the biggest celebrities of recent years and “inventing” a new form of CGI to transform his cast into human-like cats, but it did not pay off.

I’m going to dive straight in and discuss the CGI. When we were shown the first production stills of the film I was hoping it was some kind of unrenderred cut that they just had to share with us because their marketing team were breathing down their necks. Turns out I was wrong and that CGI that they shared with us back in 2019 was the finished product. The finished product that has made all the facial features of the creatures completely disproportioned, some of them had “fur” on their faces, some of them didn’t. I’m sure there was a wide shot where Taylor Swifts face was just Taylor Swifts face and they’d forgotten to “catify” her.
I need to just have a vent about the feet. *deep breath* When CGI is put over an image it commonly looses all the weight in the performer/subject. When the actor places their feet on the floor (in this case on the green screened sound stage) you should be able to feel the weight of the body, as you would if it’s a live action performance. A film franchise that manages to keep the weight of the subject after the mo-cap process is applied is the Matt Reeves Ape’s trilogy and they were fully grown, heavier than human, apes. These were tiny cats and mice (oh god, don’t get me started on the mice). There was zero to no weight to these characters, when they placed their feet down they didn’t even keep stationary with the floor, like they were floating in some weird uncomfortable realm, neither on the floor or in the sky.
This is something that I notice all the time with CGI’d characters and this was easily the worst I’ve seen it. And as for the sizing, I’m not sure who measured but I’ve never seen a cat small enough to fit a wedding ring on their wrists or be able to walk down one track of a railway line.

We’ve all complained about Judy Denches wedding ring, the weird breakdancing twins wearing high tops, not to mention everything about Rebel Wilsons’ Jennyanydots. But really, these are things that on a film with this size budget should not slip through. Not to mention, they were in post production on this film right up until the day of the world premiere, so to say it was rushed is an understatement. They’ve since had to re-release the film with a new vfx edit, which after a bit of research turns out to be the version I watched, I’d be scared to see just how bad it was before the new edit. 

Actually, lets go back to Jennyanydots. I’m not a Rebel Wilson fan as it is, truth be told, but this scene when introducing Jenny made me feel all new levels of uncomfortable. Those cockroaches?? “Don’t get cocky!”….I mean, really?? The script was full of these terrible cat related puns, I’m not sure what audience that kind of humour is aimed at but it fell painfully flat with me. Jenny’s segment of the film was the hardest for me to watch.

Performance wise it wasn’t bad from the lesser-known cast members, Victoria (Francesca Hayward) was ok, obviously she is a phenomenal dancer and her general expressive performance wasn’t bad. I didn’t like her singing voice, she sounded like she really struggled with the higher harmonies, but as it goes in the original production Victoria doesn’t have any singing parts, so I’m willing to let this slide.

Jennifer Hudson didn’t do it for me, there was something almost flat about her portrayal of Grizabella the glamour cat, shame really, she’s a really interesting character. She was swamped by the ensemble cast in this rendition. I’d have liked to have seen them play a bit more freely with Grizabella’s story, out of all the cats her past is the most interesting and it would have been nice if they’d been a bit more daring with her.

A lot of the other big names in the cast were just painful name selling, Taylor Swift’s new character Bomberlarina was a waste of time and, I’m assuming, money. Jason Derulo ruined my favourite character, so I’m going to move swiftly on from that. I hated everything about Idris Elba’s attempt at playing Macavity, no idea why they made him so present and comical. The whole point of Macavity’s character is that you’re not supposed to ever see him and because it was Idris Elba playing the role he had one of the highest screen time counts. 

I’m a bit concerned Judi Dench didn’t really know where she was or what she was doing most of the time. I do not need to see a highly acclaimed 85 year old classically trained actress doing some sort of leg stretches whilst wearing a onesie and lying in a cat bed. 

Ian McKellen did a good job, I would assume he can relate quite heavily to Gus the Theatre Cat and luckily it didn’t require too much singing. His performance probably had the most heart out of all the characters in this insane ensemble cast.

The most enjoyable performance to watch was big screen newbie Robbie Fairchild as Munkustrap, as in the stage production this character holds the entire piece together and he did a great job. Mr Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson) was also strong, he didn’t have a great singing voice which isn’t usually a problem for that character as he’s not supposed to sing his own song! But considering the material he was given, he did well. 

With a predicted loss on $70mil, making it one of the biggest box office flops of 2019, it was a train crash from the get go. I was very close to walking out of the cinema when James Corden graced the screen, I’ve never seen anything like it. It took me a long time to forgive Tom Hooper for what he did to Les Miserables, I can’t imagine I’ll be forgiving him for this any time soon. 

Starlight Express @ The Other Palace

*BEWARE, SPOILERS!*

I know I don’t normally review theatre productions, but I just can’t resist for this one.

Starlight Express Workshop Performance, 15/09/17
The Other Palace, London

This was a very different production of this wonderful 30 year old classic. It was a semi-staged, 3 day run on a tiny stage. The idea behind this workshop style performance was that creative director Arlene Phillips had the chance to make changes to it to make it more current and acceptable in today’s culture. I will discuss some of the changes made and if I think they worked or not.

Please bare in mind, I have seen this musical twice before; once about 20 years ago at the Apollo Victoria and once on tour in Milton Keynes, I’m not an expert when it comes to Starlight but I am making these comments based on my own opinion. 

Let me set the scene, the stage at The Other Palace is round and has a ascending audience. The band is located above the stage on a mezzanine style platform.

ACT 1:

The show opened with Control making his way up to join the band and sat at the front of the platform. Already we see new additions to the show, this is the first time that we have seen Control in person, usually he is just a pre-recorded voice over.
Instead of having Control playing with a toy train set, they have set him up with a headset and iPad and having him playing a train based game on there, this is the first major update we saw.

‘The Entry of the Trains’ opens the show with a bang, a huge opening number and allows the principle racers to be introduced. There have been a few changes to this, the trains names for one have been altered to make them more relevant and one (although I think we could do with a couple more) of the trains is now played by a female.
The British trains name has changed from “The Prince of Wales” to “Brexit”, I personally am not a fan of this change, although this joke is relevant now, I think it will get old very quickly. I also used to like that the gag with the British train was that it was always running late, this was and still is relevant and therefore would still remain funny, however, they have changed it to being a bumbling fool which some people may find offensive and quite frankly, isn’t as funny.

There are a couple of new songs in the first act which provide the female roles with some more activity which I think is great. I’m glad they haven’t changed the personalities of the coaches, they seemed to be more present in the first half than what I remember from the original soundtrack.
If my memory doesn’t deceive me, they have cut “He’ll Whistle at Me” which is not a great loss, it is a boring and predictable song and never brought much to the show.

The freight trains, one of my favourite parts of the show, have changed also since the original cast recording. The used to be called the Rocky’s, but from what I remember, they changed when the show went on tour to the Hip Hoppers (I personally prefer the Rockys!) One of the Hip Hoppers is now played by a girl, which is fab!

I am so glad they haven’t changed Greaseball at all, he’s a fantastic character, one that you love to hate, and he brings a sense of American humour to the show which I think is important to the story.

Electra is also still the same and I’m glad of that, however, in this production they’ve got him wearing 8 inch red heels which I absolutely loved but does this mean we’re not going to see him in skates in the future? Are the skates going forever? I think it would be a crying shame if so.

I had a thought whilst I was watching the show, about the gender of the characters, aside from some of the principles couldn’t all of the ensemble, and perhaps Mamma/Pappa and the Rockys, be played by either sex? I think it would be great to change from performance to performance. Why couldn’t Flat Top be played by a male and have his understudy as a female? I think it would be great!

We then get introduced to Mamma (formally known as Pappa!) and she belts out her wonderful blues number and leads us to the end of Act 1 when Rusty gets his time to shine with Starlight Express. I was very disappointed with this rendition of this song, for me it is one of the most beautiful songs in the show and it’s completely different to the original. They’ve kept the chorus the same, which is great, but the versus are very different and I didn’t feel the song ever really took off.

The production itself is fantastic, the cast are incredibly talented and so funny and the creative team have made great use of the space available to them. I liked how there were parts, mostly during the race scenes, where the cast moved up and down the aisles around the auditorium, much like when it was in the Apollo Vic they would have skated around the audience. The races worked really well, and I loved how they wrote into the script that the “lights weren’t working and kept going out” because the races couldn’t have been staged properly in that theatre, and this also gave the audience the chance to appreciate the band without any distractions.

ACT 2:

Opened with the much adored “The Rap”; so happy this has made the cut in the revised version. Fantastic song and brilliantly performed.

Red Caboose is a character I don’t remember from the original, maybe he’s just got a new name but either way, he has a new song which was fantastic and he’s an interesting character in the way that he plays with Greaseball, Electra and Dusty to try and double cross them. He soon gets his comeuppance in “One Rock’n’Roll too Many” (another of my personal favourites) which was definitely a highlight of the whole show, still just as funny as it was the first time I saw/heard it 20 years ago.

Pearl is not my favourite character by any means but she was given a couple of new numbers in this production and I don’t find her quite as annoying as I used to. Of course, everyone is routing for Pearl and Rusty throughout the whole show and they’re duet at the end of Act 2 is really sweet.

As it was a workshop production we were given feedback forms to fill in based on our opinion of the show. One of the questions was “were there any parts of the story that you found confusing” in response to this question, yes, there are two plot points that I don’t quite understand; Does Mamma die and turn into the Starlight? and Why do the Rocky’s hate Rusty so much that they end up beating him up? Maybe once there’s a fully staged version of the show I will get the answers!

I really didn’t want this review to be about the cast, I spend too much of my time writing “this person was great” and “I hate this actor” and really this post is more about the production. But, I can’t leave without just making a shout out to the entire cast, the principle performers were all fantastic and given that it is only a 3 day run their character development is incredible. The ensemble on the other hand, I really don’t know how to say it, they were just breathtaking, they all played swings and therefor were portraying about 3-5 characters each and still made it so easy to follow the story without the use of sets, costume changes and makeup.

I’m so glad to see more female performers in this show, as it’s always been quite a male dominated cast, however, I think particularly for Dustin they need to cast a heavier actor.  There are comments made throughout the script about him being a heavy coach and that’s the reason Mamma breaks down in Race 1. I’m not saying the guy that played him tonight wasn’t any good, the complete opposite actually, he was brilliant and had a really stunning voice. I just think we need to see a bit more size diversity and this character is a great one for that.

One last thing before I go to bed – thank you, thank you to the creatives behind this new revised version of this amazing musical, for not cutting my favourite song from any musical ever; U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D. For as long as I can remember this has been my favourite and I would have been gutted if it had been cut. (Just like I was when Little People was cut from Les Mis, I’m looking at you Mackintosh.)

Please come home Starlight Express, London has missed you.