George

George is a minor character in the musical Cats. He appears only rarely, in the London Production and occasionally in larger worldwide productions. He appears as an unnamed character in the Film version, credited only as Rumpus Cat.

Personality
George is a young adult cat, more mature than the kittens Carbucketty and Bill Bailey, but not taking responsibility like Alonzo or Skimbleshanks. In London he was often seen with Victor.

In the 1998 film, he seemed rather shy but excitable. Most of his screen time was spent with open-mouthed expressions, often times grinning.

Role
George's main featured role is of playing Rumpus Cat. He was also the 6th member of Growltiger's Raffish Crew, wearing black and white striped shirt with an orange bandana. Otherwise he part of the dancing ensemble.

In the London Production, Steven Wayne, an original cast member, played Admetus, then George for most of the 21 year run. When Steven Wayne left the show in 2000, the character of George was retired with him in honour of his outstanding run with the show.

Some productions name their swing characters using other names from "The Naming of Cats", and so George sometimes makes an appearance as a swing, but not a character in his own right within the show.



Film "Admetus"
In the 1998 Film of Cats, Frank Thompson is only credited as Rumpus Cat, his ensemble role is left un-named. Early fan-sites noticed this un-named character, and realised there was no cat named "Admetus" in the film, so decided to refer to this character as Admetus. However this is in error, as Admetus is the alternate name for Plato. The film is based on the original London production playing at the time, in which George doubled as Rumpus Cat. The film costume is George's, however worn with softer makeup than onstage.

Moscow 2005
George appears in photos from the 2005 Moscow production of Cats, which featured costumes supplied by the UK costume makers. He is featured alongside Pouncival wearing the London Carbucketty design.



Palladium Pouncival
The 2014 London Palladium production features an extra male kitten in the ensemble, besides the normal London-based character names Bill Bailey and Carbucketty; named Pouncival. However he is in design much closer to George including the double eye patches, than being a duplicate of Carbucketty as the name would suggest. His costume developed from an old London George wig used in the UK Tour for swings in the large group photoshoots, and similar to George lacks bold design features in the unitard, particularly Carbucketty's gold and black chest stripes. Pouncival also takes George's role as the 6th member of Growltiger's Raffish Crew.

Australian George
George had previously appeared as an on-stage chorus cat/kitten swing in Australian productions and their clones. However, with the changes brought in in 2015, both George and Electra were promoted to main cast, with understudies, along with the addition of Carbucketty. He retained his previous Australian style costume, with Pouncival receiving the London George based costume.

Appearance
George's costume is one of the hardest to describe. He has brown and black hatching but no strong features except for his wig, which has a brown ear, a black ear, and the bangs between being white. Onstage his makeup consists of eye patches to match his ears and a brown spot on his lip, looking somewhat similar to Alonzo, Bill Bailey and Carbucketty.

The original design shows a relatively non-descript grey/brown cat, with prominent stripes on his left thigh and right arm, and black hatching on his right torso. The George costumes focused on the stripe elements but the torso hatching tended to be rather vague. The Palladium costume features the torso hatching far more prominently but less focus is placed on the long stripes on the thigh. Both costumes are clearly interpretations of the same design.