#cats london

[statisticalcats2]

London (2000)

Munkustrap

[naturepointstheway]

I LOVE THIS. James Davies (I think) singing (and doing a tap-off with Jenny later!) the Gumbie Cat song in London, 1993, reminding us all that one of his three words, indeed, is competitive. He certainly is not shy here, and I love Mistos who really lean into their competitive side, as his does. I might even add that he provides a very electric performance here, and I'm here for it. (James Davies is quickly becoming another Misto I really like too.)

[icantbelieveitsnotbomba]

Rumpleteazer and Tantomile (Cathy Cordez and Amanda Abbs) London 1985

[white-cat-of-doom]

A gobo (or lighting aperture) used to project the CATS eyes onstage and throughout the theatre in the later London production, presumably during the Overture. You can see the scorch marks on the piece from the hot lighting!

It is the thinnest, and one of the smallest pieces at a little over an inch wide, in my collection, being comprised of a small metal disc with the eyes stamped out.

An interesting piece for sure, and I wonder exactly where else it was used!

[jellicle-brawl]

Jellicle cats, come out tonight, Jellicle cats, come one, come all, the Jellicle moon is shining bright, Jellicles come to the Jellicle Brawl!

Are you a fan of Cats the Musical? Do you have very strong opinions about which performer in which show was the BEST, most QUINTESSENTIAL performance for that character across the board? Would you like the chance to put that opinion against someone else's?

Welcome to the Jellicle Brawl! This will be a bracket for Cats performers across its many shows and performances, so submit your favorite and we'll pit them against each other. (ex, "Michael Gruber as Munkustrap from the 1998 film" vs "John Partridge as The Rum Tum Tugger from the 1998 film"). Note that even though this is a competition, our aim is to celebrate these performers who worked to bring these characters to life with their own flair! This is ultimately just a chance to hold these performers up and go "hey! look how cool they are!"

Before we get started, a few submission rules (I know it's long, most of it is just clarifying information, the rules are actually fairly lax)

1. You can make as many submissions as you like but only one submission per performer and only one performer per submission.

2. When submitting, in the character name slot use only the cat's full name (ex The Rum Tum Tugger instead of just Tugger), with correct spelling and capitalization. If the character was officially credited under multiple names, put them in alphabetical order separated by a / (ex, Admetus/Plato, rather than Plato and Admetus). This is for sorting purposes for the form, to make things easier on me later. (This is the only one I'm coming down hard on since I'm depending on it for sorting the form. For the rest formatting is far more relaxed.)

3. Please include a video or still of the performer in costume, alone if possible.

4. Propaganda during the submission period is not only allowed but encouraged. We're celebrating these performers and their portrayals; I WANT you to gush about them and tell me and everyone else why it's so good. Anti-propaganda, however, will not be tolerated.

5. The following cats can be submitted EITHER as individual characters OR with the pair as a single unit

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (if submitting them together, please use "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" for the submission name.)

The Psychic Twins/Coricopat and Tantomile (if submitting them together, please use "The Psychic Twins" for the submission name. If they use alternative names, list those in extra info.)

Gus/Growltiger (in shows where Growltiger was used for Gus' performance)

The Rumpus Cat/{whichever chorus cat portrayed him} (If submitting them together, please use "The Rumpus Cat/Counterpart" for the submission name and list the name in extra info)

For all other instances of performers doubling up on their characters, please submit each character individually (ex, Brian Blessed as Old Deuteronomy as a separate submission from Brian Blessed as Bustopher Jones)

6. Michael Gruber's portrayal of Munkustrap is banned because I cannot and refuse to be impartial about him, which is why he'll instead emcee the tournament with me. The 2o19 film Cats is also banned, for similar but distinctly opposite reasons. Any submissions for them will be thrown out.

There are two portrayals that are getting in automatically but I won't be revealing those because I don't want to affect submissions.

I'll decide how many submissions to use once I know how many submissions I have. We'll see how this goes then.

Submissions will remain open indefinitely as I'm not really ready to go live with the tournament yet but want to give you guys time to get in.

Obligatory tagging of other polls: @crossovershipstournament @bugcrimesbracket@orangecharactersmackdown @blue-character-brawl @grim-reaper-bracket

[ebiemidnightlibrarian]

GARETH SNOOK as BUSTOPHER JONES/GUS/GROWLTIGER/ASPARAGUS in CATS (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 & 2008) [x] (imagens by @bellesdomain)

[dr6-14-2023]

Mwah 💋

[conjuringturns]

a promo photo for the 2000 london production of cats, featuring david ashley as munkustrap (x)

[none-ofthisnonsense]

I love OLC Jellicle Ball.

[buggachat]

WHO ELSE IS SEASON 6 HYYYYYYPE

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

This post has gotten a bit more attention lately, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update, having seen a few more versions of the number.

We're lucky when it comes to Vienna footage. I found multiple recordings of Gumbie Cat from that production. One of them is from around 1984, fairly early on, and it doesn't include the gag. Misto looks bored, like he's waiting for the bit where he can show off his magic opening the car, but he doesn't really draw attention to himself. By around 1988, in a later recording, the gag is there. I can't find any live Broadway recordings of Gumbie cat from specifically between 1984 and 1988, so I can't say whether the gag was there or not, but we do have a Broadway recording of the very beginning of Gumbie Cat in 1994, with Lindsay Chambers as Misto, and the gag is there.

Looking at the sort of family tree of productions, in 1981, you get London, where Misto sings Gumbie Cat. In 1982, you get Broadway, which gives Misto's Gumbie Cat lines to Munkustrap. In 1983, you get Vienna, the first replica production outside of the Big Two of London and Broadway. It mostly follows the Broadway version with a few innovations of its own. Vienna was the inspiration for Amsterdam, Paris, and Zurich. I've seen a 1987 Amsterdam recording of Gumbie Cat and the gag is there. That's the earliest recording of the gag I've found. Meanwhile, Broadway also inspirited the Sydney production in 1985, with inspired the Hamburg production in 1986, which was another major production that ran for a long time. This means we've got multiple Hamburg bootlegs. Neither one include this gag. This implies to me that by 1985, the Broadway production wasn't using the gag.

My current guess is that some time between 1984 and 1987, the Vienna production added the gag. They started out without it, but as the show ran for years, with the same actor playing Mistoffelees the whole way through, I'm guessing people started having new ideas to freshen things up. By 1987, the gag started appearing in the Vienna production, inspiring Amsterdam to include it. It spread to every production inspired by Vienna in the late 80s and early 90s, while London, Broadway, and Hamburg were just doing their own thing. A lot of international shows, those in Asia and South Africa, took after Sydney. So the Sydney/Hamburg version could be considered the International Version. US Tours and productions in the Americas, such as in Canada and Mexico, followed Broadway. Similarities between Mexico 1991, Buenos Aires 1993, and the US tour from after the Broadway production closed, make me think that US Tours made a fear changes from Broadway and that was the version, the one that traveled around, getting closer to Mexico than New York is, was the one Mexico took inspiration from.

Then, in 1993, the Zurich production evolved into a European tour, but Lindsay Chambers, who'd started playing Misto in Zurich in 1992, went over to Broadway. His previous experiences with the character were sort of brought over and combined with what Broadway was doing. In the original Broadway production, Misto sang a verse of his own number, but I think this stopped happening before Chambers showed up there. There's a sort of charity thing from 1991, I think, where the Broadway cast of Cats performed some popular numbers, Mistoffelees included, with Tugger singing the whole number. Misto's singing role was most likely trimmed down because it made casting the role easier. By this point, some of the Broadway Mistos were being played by actors from other countries. This happened with several characters. The reason with have our 1994 Broadway footage is because of a Japanese actress playing Victoria. I believe 1991 Misto was was also Japanese. People might've been worried about how different accents could affect the singing, so they cut some of it.

Though Zurich Misto was completely mute, 1994 Broadway Misto does sing. We don't have his number, so I don't know if he sings it, but we have The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball, and he sings that. So Chambers didn't alter the role to resemble Zurich enough for singing to be removed, but I'm guessing there was some influence. This one gag from Gumbie Cat was funny and Broadway decided they liked it. So it was added to Broadway in 1993. It was definitely there by 1994, but I believe it started in 1993, because it's also in the Buenos Aires production.

US Tours copied Broadway and they might've updated over time to match it, so when the gag was added to Broadway, the US Tours going at the time might've picked it up. If Mexico was based on US Tours, Buenos Aires might've been as well. So the gag ended up there too.

In the mid-90s Jacob Brent became Broadway Misto, learning the role from Chambers. So, the gag continued. It was now a Thing with Broadway. The Vienna-based productions had all ended by this point, so it was American productions keeping it alive now.

Then, in 1997, Cats broke a record for the longest running show on Broadway (Phantom of the Opera later broke its record, but that's not important now). This made for a big damn thing, causing a lot of the people who worked on Cats originally to go and see what Broadway was doing. At the same time, an animated adaptation of Cats wasn't happening and it was decided to record a version of it instead. The original team including Andrew Lloyd Webber and GIllian Lynne were working on it and they were based in London. So, most of the cast for the VHS came from London, past or present, and UK Tours. There were a handful of exceptions. There had been a Dutch language production in Antwerp, Belgium in 1996 and they liked the face of their Jemima, so she ended up in the VHS. Having at least one actor from the original Broadway cast was cool, so they got Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy. And they brought in two actors who were on Broadway at the time, members of the Record Breaking Cast. On of these two was Jacob Brent.

So, you have a mostly London-based cast, which meant a mostly London-based show. But, it was only mostly London-based. Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap are characterized pretty much the same in London and Broadway, so you mostly get London choreography and staging there. But, Misto had evolved in wildly different directions in different parts of the world. They decided they wanted the 90s Broadway version of Misto in a mostly 90s London-based show. The led to changes in the choreography. This led to a different pacing of Misto's number. And, it led to the inclusion of several gags and character bits, one of them being that one bit at the beginning of Gumbie Cat.

The 1998 VHS version is the easiest to access by design, so the most well-known version of the show includes this gag. This means that more people are going to see it and more productions are going to include it. The US Tour kept doing it after Broadway closed. The Brazilian production in 2010 was a sort of London/Broadway mix and they included it. But, outside of that, it didn't really catch on in stage productions. As far as I can tell, the gag was never used in London, and after London closed, international shows became gradually more and more London-based, so they didn't use it either. The Post-Broadway US Tour ended before the revival and the Broadway Revival and its following tour didn't use the gag, so it's now functionally gone extinct.

So there's the history of around five seconds in one musical number of Cats.

Cats Historical Hypothesis

So, who wants to hear about the potential history of a few seconds of the 1998 version?

Too bad. This is my channel and I can do what I want.

So, I’m gonna talk about a brief moment that occurs in the 1998 version, as well as a few others and guess about its origins. Why do some productions have it and some don’t? Where did it come from? This is speculation based on comparing 14 different versions (Broadway Revival, Buenos Aires, 1998, German Tent Tour, Hamburg, London circa 2002, Madrid, Mexico 1991, Moscow, Paris, UK Tour 2013, US Tour V, Vienna, and Zurich), and whatever historical trivia I can find on the wiki. This is called a hypothesis for a reason. It’s not proven fact. It’s an educated guess.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot of the thing this essay/tangent will be about:

I’m too lazy to get a version I didn’t type on.

I’m adding a cut for people who don’t care to more easily scroll by this thing.

Keep reading

[statisticalcats2]

London (2000)

Munkustrap

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. sound revolutionized cinema across the board and had a huge impact on the horror genre— and not just in the form of dialogue. sound effects added an extra dimension to terror, from creaking doors to echoing footsteps to the rumbling of castle thunder. music cues built suspense or signaled the presence of a threat. as screen storytelling moved away from symbolism towards realism, the dreamlike wraiths of silent cinema were replaced by monsters that grunted, groaned and howled.”

[thegeezenation]

Steves and Dylan

[catsofyore]

“Miss Iris Davis… spends a great deal of time recovering cats with the aid of a "lassoo” from the debris of bombed house. So far she has rescued six hundred of these feline strays, 8 November 1940.“ Source.

[anomalouscorvid]

WHAT THE HAMMER, WHAT THE CHAIN?