Lloyd Webber to revive ‘Cats’

LONDON - Reuters

British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, centre, director Trevor Nunn, left, and choreographer Gillian Lynne, centre right, pose for the photographers with performers in cat costumes, during a photo-op to promote the return of the musical Cats, July 7. AP Photo

Andrew Lloyd Webber is about to find out if felines have more than one life - and possibly a cinematic one as well - as he prepares to bring his 1980s hit musical “Cats” back to London’s West End for a limited run.

The creator of hit musicals including “Evita” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” announced plans this week to revive “Cats,” his 1981 show based on poet T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”, for a two-week run at the end of this year.

“I think it’s just a great opportunity for us to get a second edition ... with this show I think it would be great just to have a go at it again and give it a bit of a rethink,” he said at a launch event held in a London theater on July 7.

Lloyd Webber said he would also consider bringing back some of his other hits, such as “Phantom of the Opera” and “Starlight Express”, and that movie versions were a possibility.  “Yes I think it’s very possible that I might have a look at one or two of my shows,” Lloyd Webber said.

“And of course, the other thing that’s happening is them being made into movies ... There is considerable talk at last about “Cats” being made into a movie so it gives me a chance to think about the material and how that can happen.”

Lloyd-Webber’s more recent musicals have not enjoyed the success of his earlier efforts. His most recent foray into the West End was “Stephen Ward,” about the 1961 British politics-and-sex scandal known as “The Profumo Affair” which arose from a sexual liaison between the then Secretary of War, John Profumo, and aspiring model Christine Keeler.

The production opened in December 2013 but struggled at the box office and had its final performance at the end of March.