Cats
Crown Theatre, Burswood
Thursday, November 13 2025
Bust out the leg warmers, big hair, and multi-coloured spandex leotards. Welcome back to the 1980s, a time when musicals were monolithic blockbusters, shared cultural touchstones, and more often than not had the name Andrew Lloyd Webber attached. The 2019 film adaptation? Never heard of her.
On this fortieth anniversary of the original Australian production of Cats, this tour had the tagline, “Let the memory live again”—both a line from the performance’s most famous song and also a straight connection through to the audience’s collective hippocampus, with a nostalgia play that was fun and hazy yet so direct as to be blatant.
Much has been written and discussed over the past several decades about the property’s paper-thin plot, with new characters that continue to be introduced well into the second act, but a point just as relevant yet quite often overlooked is the vividly brave experimentation of the piece. The show included tap-dancing cockroaches, a twenty-minute stretch of orchestral dance theatre with no lyrics whatsoever, and two packs of dogs, as imagined by the feline cast, that gave just as much nightmare fuel as any misguided CGI.
Musically, the evening bounded from Wagnerian-style opera, through lightly distilled prog rock, all the way to Andrews Sisters’ big band and jazz, with more than enough synthesisers to make Vangelis happy. Often a fever dream with nonsense lyrics that could be the ultimate epitome of the phrase “It’s the vibe,” Cats is performance art coyly repackaged as family entertainment, ballet for those who say they don’t like ballet. One can only marvel in wonder at the creative processes in play before the original London premiere in 1981, and the thought reverberated down all those years through to tonight: how on earth did Lloyd Webber get away with this?
All that said, Cats was a spectacular visual feast. One of the best examples in theatre of the power of practical effects, the costuming and make-up tonight were stunning. Every individual character had an exquisite and distinctive outfit, while every actor was able to visibly emote to the very back rows, despite the multiple layers of face they were each underneath.
Most of the cast were certified triple threats—the performance required them to sing, dance, and often be accomplished gymnasts. Des Flanagan as Rum Tum Tugger burst onto the stage for his opening number, exuding charisma, chemistry, and electricity from every pore. The cast around him, male and female, swooned in his presence. Later, as Tugger sang-narrated to Mr Mistoffelees’ silent dance during the second act, Flanagan and a gloriously sequinned Tim Haskayne were both absolutely magnetic.
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser—Jake O’Brien and Savannah Lind, respectively—had their introduction about halfway through the first act. Prior to their arrival, the stage had been filled with a dozen rotating characters, but these two cleared the deck and were effortlessly able to inhabit the entire space all to themselves. Akin to the Thenardiers of Les Misérables, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser were part comic relief and part boisterous dishonesty, and the crowd loved them for both.
Gabriyel Thomas was a revelation in the role of Grizabella. As the primary focus for the entire performance, as such a large ensemble piece can possibly have, Thomas drew all eyes to her, both on and off stage, every time she made an appearance. As much as Grizabella’s character arc was truncated in sacrifice to a song, a debate now older than probably half the audience, Thomas hit every mark required of her and more—the requisite chills when she belted out Memory in the evening’s home stretch were authentic, cathartic and fully earned.
Old Deuteronomy was performed by Mark Vincent, and his strong tenor clawed deeply into the gut of all who watched, a perfect encapsulation of the soulful, serious gravitas the character undertook in his Jellicle choosing. Unlike so many others on stage tonight, Old Deuteronomy did not rush about, did not follow the crowd, and contemplated it all in minute detail.
Todd McKenney returned again to the Crown Perth stage, pulled double duty as Bustopher Jones and Gus the Theatre Cat, and in doing so appeared to be having an absolute ball, chewing the scenery in every direction. All the adoration the other cats gave Gus, as they drank in his every word of the old theatre, was a direct mirror to the disdain shown to Grizabella, as accomplished a storyteller, if only they would listen.
Cats is certainly a time capsule back to the decade of its creation, a window into what was important to both audiences and producers then, and a frankly gorgeous flourish of escapism. Even after all the years of the musical and the decades since T. S. Eliot’s original poetry, the overall question of what the performance meant remained confoundingly unknowable. Was it a Resurrection parable? A street tour of Victorian London? Something more, something less?
It turned towards each and every individual’s interpretation, somewhat of a leap of faith to go along with the ride. As the song itself observed, soon it will be morning—perhaps it was best to allow yourself to be swept away in the magic tonight.