One of the most beloved and well-known Broadway musicals is the Andrew Lloyd Webber-composed hit, Cats. There’s nothing we love more than a beautiful, cultured piece of art – except maybe one that revolves around our favorite furry feline friends! London’s West End, the UK’s answer to Broadway, is looking to revive the popular musical once again… but there’s going to be a twist: a rapping cat. Yes, you read that right.
According to Yahoo!, the Cats composer Lloyd Weber is planning to spice up his already iconic masterpiece with a little “hip hop flavor.” His character Rum Tum Tugger will be made (re-made?) into a rapping street cat this time around. The composer announced Monday that the musical will be returning to London (where it opened in 1981) in December and will have some tweaks.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that … maybe Eliot was the inventor of rap. The thing about the Eliot verse is that you can tell he’s American. Nobody other than Eliot would have written ‘The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat,'” Lloyd Weber said.
If you haven’t seen the musical or don’t know the storyline, Cats is based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The musical is about a tribe of cats who are called the Jellicles and the night they make “the Jellice choice” – when they decide which feline will be ascending to the Heaviside Layer and come back with a new life. Even if you don’t know the story, you probably have heard the musical’s standout song, “Memory.”
Cats will be making its run at London’s West End at the Palladium for 12 weeks, starting on December 6, 2014.
Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
