The Opening Night of 'Cats'

Rerun. At a cost of £2m, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘Cats’ premiered at the New London Theatre on 11th May, 1981 – and the world had never seen anything like it. With a cast including Brian Blessed and Elaine Paige, the original production was innovative, sexy, creepy, bizarre – and an enormous gamble for the impresarios who backed it. In this episode, Olly, Rebecca and Arion look back at the original reviews for the show, consider whether John Napier’s award-winning costume design was actually incredibly lazy, and reveal how the show’s signature song, ‘Memory’, nearly didn’t happen at all… Further reading: • Elaine Paige performs ‘Memory’ in the original production: • Sue MacGregor interviews the cast and crew for Radio 4’s ‘The Reunion’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008jyn • ‘Cats’ – a timeline from London’s Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/cats-musical-history-a4439316.html ‘Why am I hearing a rerun?’ Every Thursday is 'Throwback Thursday' on Today in History with the Retrospectors: running one repeat per week means we can keep up the quality of our independent podcast. Daily shows like this require a lot of work! But as ever we'll have something new for you tomorrow, so follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/Retrospectors Love the show? Join 🌴CLUB RETROSPECTORS🌴 to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode every SUNDAY! Plus, get weekly bonus bits, unlock over 70 bits of extra content and support our independent podcast. Join now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks! The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill. Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Emma Corsham. Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices