London Production/The Story of Musicals

The Story of Musicals is a three-part BBC documentary series chronicling the history of musical theatre in Britain. Episode 2 has a segment dedicated to the making of the original London production of Cats. It features interviews with the original creative team, as well as members of the original cast including Elaine Paige, Wayne Sleep, Paul Nicholas and Bonnie Langford. The episode originally aired on BBC Four on 10 January 2012.

Episode Description
This episode charts how British musical talent in the 1980s stormed the West End with hits like Cats, Les Miserables, Blood Brothers and Phantom of the Opera. There are first-hand accounts from the extraordinary individuals whose tenacity and creativity ensured these shows became mega-hits despite often precarious beginnings. And it reveals how the titantic shows of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh became global phenomena, securing Britain's reputation as the powerhouse of musical theatre.

With contributions from Lord Lloyd Webber, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Stephen Fry, Trevor Nunn, Sir Cliff Richard, Elaine Paige, Gillian Lynne, Paul Nicholas, Bonnie Langford, Richard Stilgoe, John Caird, John Napier, Bill Kenwright, Willy Russell, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg, Anthony Pye-Jeary, Arlene Phillips, Charles Hart, Don Black, Harold Prince and Michael Ball.

Transcript
This is a transcript of the Cats segment of the documentary.

 START

Narrator: In 1978, the British musical had reached a high watermark with Evita. Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's partnership helping to bring the West End back into contention with Broadway. But with that relationship coming to an end, the British musical had stalled.

By the start of the eighties, Britain was in recession. The West End was facing rising costs and falling audiences. Even American imports were having a tough ride, finding critical acclaim but disappointingly short runs. Not the ideal time then for Andrew Lloyd Webber to attempt a musical about his favourite domestic pet.

[Set Interview]

Gillian Lynne (Choreographer & Associate Director): Everybody thought we were mad to do a show about cats - everybody thought we were raving mad.

Trevor Nunn (Director): The number of people who asked me with an embarrassed smile on their face: "You're doing a show about pussycats? Really?"

[Archived footage from a 1980 television interview]

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Cats are not pussycats in my book. They're street animals, they're earthy, they're athletic, and this is a show that is going to be very much about dance.

[Archived footage of Lynne and Finola Hughes rehearsing the White Cat Solo]

Gillian Lynne (to Hughes): Right. Now, really pull and pull yourself out. And be surprised to see your own leg...

Narrator: Britain had never had a successful dance musical. Its strength were traditionally in singing or acting. By attempting a show that required all three was unprecedented.

[Archived footage from a 1980 television interview]

Andrew Lloyd Webber: It's the sort of show that we're told sort of at birth that it's impossible to do in Britain. Which is precisely why we're doing it here.

[Archived footage of Finola Hughes performing the White Cat Solo]

Narrator: But Lloyd Webber had never had a successful musical without lyricist Tim Rice. And the lyrics for Cats would all come from a collection of poems by the dead poet T S Eliot.

[Set Interview]

Trevor Nunn: I had auditioned, along with Gillian, to find a group of people who would want to join a group where at the outset, there was no definitive story and there were no assignable characters. I mean, that's a tall order.

Bonnie Langford ('Rumpelteazer' - Cats): It was a musical based on a poetry book that were poems and letters sent by T S Eliot to his nephews, nieces and godchildren as little newsletters as such. So how were they going to piece all this together?

Narrator: While Trevor worked out how to piece the poems into a story, choreographer Gillian Lynne set to work instilling a sense of cat-ness into the cast.

[Archived footage of Lynne rehearsing with the original West End cast]

Gillian Lynne: Is everybody here? Is there any rotter hiding behind the seat?

[Set Interview]

Gillian Lynne: I had to teach them how to become a cat. And I had to find how to become a cat myself. Not easy - not easy to get the muscles to work, and to get your hands being paws, and thinking different, and thinking with your ears, and all of that. It was a whole different realm of work.

[Archived footage of Lynne and Geraldine Gardner rehearsing "Macavity"]

Gillian Lynne (to Gardner): His brow is deep - hold it there!

[Set Interview]

Bonnie Langford: She really tried to create this unusual cross between ballet, jazz, and this sort of animalistic approach.

Gillian Lynne: It was hideously hard for all of us... and thrilling.

[Archived footage of Lynne, Gardner and Sharon Lee-Hill rehearsing "Macavity"]

Gillian Lynne: Macavity, Macavity, there's no one - like a stomach ache. No one *da-da-ba-ba*

[Archived footage of Gardner and Lee-Hill performing "Macavity"]

Geraldine Gardner & Sharon Lee-Hill: Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity! He's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity...

[Set Interview]

Bonnie Langford: We really had to sort of build up our stamina. And generally, something would happen.

Wayne Sleep ('Mr Mistoffelees' - Cats) There were a lot of injuries because it was a very difficult thing to dance. And of course in the space you had, people were falling over. And it wasn't an easy birth, let's say.

[Archived footage of the original West End cast performing the "Jellicle Ball"]

Narrator: What made Cats all the more challenging was that many of the creative team were entirely unused to the demands of a commercial West End musical.

[Set Interview]

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Nobody in our team had done it before except for me. Certainly Trevor Nunn hadn't - Gillian Lynne a little bit but not to the same degree, but the team picked up on it pretty fast.

[Archived footage of Cameron Mackintosh]

Cameron Mackintosh: Listen, can you give a message to David, please Linda, from Arina Martin that she thinks that the frills around the bed look like old knickers, and worse, they look like out of period old knickers. So could you look at it, thank you.

Narrator: For producer Cameron Mackintosh, whose reputation was in staging revivals, finding financial backing for a new musical with no story by a dead lyricist about dancing cats was proving to be a challenge.

[Set Interview]

Cameron Mackintosh: The finance was impossible - that was the difficult bit. We both had a terrible time getting the money. For me, it was less surprising. But bearing in my mind that so many people had made an absolute fortune out of Andrew through Superstar and Joseph and things like that - and of course Evita, they wouldn't cough up.

Gillian Lynne: I remember standing on the steps of the New London with Trevor and Cameron and Andrew, and Andrew said: "We'll all have to go out and try and find our rich friends.

Cameron Mackintosh: And very famous people in theatre I will not name, who were offered even during previews a quarter of the capital - we were still that short - went: "No, this will never work."

Narrator: In desperation, Mackintosh even turned to those he hoped would recognise the full potential of the show: the cast.

Wayne Sleep: I don't think I'd invested in it. I'd given it three months (laughter). Fool.

Paul Nicholas ('Rum Tum Tugger' - Cats): I mean, he's asking me and I'm in it (laughter). "Have you got any money to put in the show?" So I think the only thing I was aware of was that he was looking for money and I didn't put it in. And I've hated myself ever since.

Wayne Sleep: It wasn't so much whether Andrew would lose money or Cameron would lose money. What they would lose was kudos. If all that had gone in to this big production, and they had all those names of Trevor Nunn, Andrew, Cameron, Gillian Lynne, and all the stars that were in it... if that didn't succeed, how would they have felt? It was their kudos at stake, not so much - I think - the money.

[Archived footage of the original West End cast rehearsing the "Jellicle Ball"]

Narrator: The combination of money worries, lack of story, and exhausting dance rehearsals meant that tempers were often frayed.

[Set Interview]

Bonnie Langford: Everybody was very tense and confused. There were lots of tantrums went on.

Trevor Nunn: There was a big argument just before the show opened (laughter).

Bonnie Langford: Andrew comes running through the auditorium, with Cameron not that far behind, screaming: "This is the worst piece of music I've ever written! This show is not going ahead!"

Cameron Mackintosh: It's always a good sign when Andrew withdraws the score (laughter). It's happened on every show I've ever done with him.

Wayne Sleep: I thought: "Well if they're doubting what's happening and they're producing it, maybe we're in for a disaster here!" It did cross my mind.

[Archived footage of the original West End cast performing the "Jellicle Ball"]

Narrator: Throughout all the difficulties, there was one ray of hope. One of Britain's finest post-war actresses had agreed to play the key role of Grizabella. But this being Cats, acting wasn't enough. Judi Dench would also have to sing and dance.

[Set Interview]

Wayne Sleep: I was rehearsing with Judi Dench, and she went: "You kicked me!" And I said: "I didn't actually." I said: "Are you alright?" She couldn't walk. Well what had happened is her Achilles tendon had snapped.

Paul Nicholas: So she could no longer do the show, which was terrible for her - I hate to say this - but in some ways a blessing for the show because it meant that they had to bring in Elaine Paige. And Elaine Paige has a fabulous voice.

Elaine Paige ('Grizabella' - Cats): Paul Nicholas came up and said: "What the hell are you doing in this pile of" - you know. They were all intrigued as to why I had agreed to join the company, because they - I think they were pretty fed up with it.

Narrator: Elaine stepped in with just three days left before the previews began. With a world class singer onboard, all they needed now were some lyrics.

Elaine Paige: They rehearsed me and I think maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday - and for ten previews from that Monday on I was singing a different lyric every night.

Richard Stilgoe (Lyricist): I think Don Black wrote: "Good times, I must wait for the good times."

Don Black: (Lyricist): I did a lyric for it. I think Tim did a lyric. A whole bunch of people did a lyric to that tune of "Memory".

Richard Stilgoe: Tim Rice wrote: "Street lamps and the spaces between them."

Tim Rice (Lyricist): I did write a lyric for "Memory" and it went into the show for a couple of nights in previews, then it was taken out and given to a lyricist chosen by the director: the director (laughter).

Narrator: Frustrated with the efforts of the professionals, director Trevor Nunn had written his own set of lyrics cobbled together from lines of T S Eliot.

Trevor Nunn: I showed it to Andrew on a Monday morning and he said: "That's it!" And so it went into the show.

[Footage of Elaine Paige performing "Memory" from the 1998 film]

Narrator: But even with the inclusion of Elaine Paige and "Memory", as the show headed precariously to opening night, it was still far from certain that Cats would work.

Bonnie Langford: We went on stage really not knowing whether we were going to be the biggest success or the biggest flop. Whether it was brilliant or laughed at, it would be extreme.

Arlene Phillips: I was sitting in the stalls and I heard the whispering around the theatre as we heard the cats whisper the first words. I had a chill throughout, I had a tingle because I hadn't experienced anything quite like it before.

Bonnie Langford: The audience were going crazy and it was elating - it was extraordinary.

Wayne Sleep: "Well" I thought, "Now dance has arrived in England! Hallelujah!"

Cameron Mackintosh: I think for the British musical it was utterly pivotal. It absolutely raised the bar as to what the triple threat was and you could no longer have actors who sang, dancers who danced, and singers who couldn't do either. Everyone had to do everything. And from that point on, you saw the rise and rise of the British performers.

Narrator: Cats kick-started a major change in the fortunes of British musical theatre, with Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber taking central roles on an increasingly global stage.

Cameron Mackintosh: To our surprise, people didn't just want to rent the script, the music, they wanted us to actually put on our version of the show, which started sort of a global enterprise.

Andrew Lloyd Webber: And I remember Cameron saying to me: "I don't want to get involved with all of this business about musicals and other things. I mean we can get local producers to do it." And I said: "Cameron, Cameron, you've got to do it yourself. You are a producer, that's what you do. You've got to produce it yourself."

Narrator: Their attention to detail extended far beyond the walls of the theatre. For the first time in a musical, the power of merchandising and advertising came to the fore.

Anthony Pye-Jeary (Marketing Specialist, Dewynters): We always saw it more of the person buying the t shirt - we wanted them to then be a walking advertisement for us. It started a whole new form of brand marketing that hadn't been around before.

END