h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Cats - The Musical - A14159478
Author: Opticalillusion - merry christmas everyone - U231227

I'm sure the cats are out tonight and waiting for this one.

Hi Opti!

A good start, I'd say. There's a lot more you could say about what the show actually is.

A few small points:

"This includes Mexico who decided unanimously to keep the name Cats and not change it to Gatos." -- unanimously? Did they really ask every single person in Mexico?

"has over the years composed of"

"Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and critic who wrote Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), The Waste Land (1922), the verse play Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (October 1939) and Four Quartets (1943)." -- verb!

"His friends nicknamed him 'Possum' as he loved cats." -- a possum is not a cat. It's a type of marsupial.

Mr Mistoffelees is black from his nose to the tip of his tail. He's not white.

"The name Pollicle Dogs derives from T.S. Eliot's nieces poor attempt to say 'Pollicle dog' when she was a child." -- this doesn't make any sense.

G

Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965)

I have lost count of the number of times I have reminded you what is house-style for dates, Opti.

26 September, 1888 – 4 January, 1965

GB

changed all but >>"has over the years composed of" which has just confused me.

To be grammatically correct, it would have to be "has been composed of". You can't say something composes of something. You say it is composed of something.

But it would be much better to say "the cast ... has included ...".

Hi,

Two things I spotted on first read:

- that I agree with Gnomon. 'has included' is much nicer. Of course, all the people you list are from the original cast, if I recall correctly.

- you list eleven Tony awards, though the production 'only' won seven. The ones it actually won are Score, Musical, Lighting, Direction, Costume, Book and Featured Actress (Buckley). It was nominated for the other four, but didn't win. I think it would be best to remove the other four from the list, though you could mention that it got eleven nominations and seven wins before listing the seven that it actually won.

Thanks.

David

updated

Shaftesbury Theatre is haunted is there an entry on this it would make interesting reading for those wholike that stuff.

anything else?

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I don't understand this, Opti, if it's a question - who are you asking?

My brain is frizzled looking at your entries, Opti, so I'll have a look at this one again when the Dawn French one is picked.

Well done, Opti! I think you've done a good job of gathering the facts about 'Cats'.

The bit that I think still needs a bit of work is the introduction. It's one, long, rather rambling sentence that I think needs to be broken up (try reading it aloud and I think you'll see what I mean).

Perhaps it could go something like this:
'Cats is a musical created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on T.S. Eliot’s 1939 children's book Old Possum's book of Practical Cats. It tells the story of The Jellicle Cats at the annual Jellicle Ball, where they must choose one of their number to be reborn. The Jellicle Cats' leader, Old Deuteronomy, is kidnapped. While they wait for him to return, each cat tells their own life story, to try to persuade the others that they should be the one chosen to have another life'.

(Note that it is 'Old Possum's Book...' not Old Possums Book.)

Finally, I think that Gus, The Theatre Cat should be included in the list of important characters. He certainly gets a great song to sing. I should know - I played Gus in an amateur production of 'Cats' last year!

"overtook it" rather that took over, I'd suggest.

And it's still playing somewhere, so a bit misleading to suggest that it's finished just cos it's not in London any more.

Are you still working on this, Opti? Has anyone got any more comments?

forgot to say that I'd updated the entry using the comments given to me by Beatrice and Ormondroyd.

Are you happy with the the Entry? What does everyone else think?

I don't understand the following sentence: "To date there have been over 9,000 performances, with the first one opening with an even more dramatic start as there was a bomb scare." Do you mean that there was a bomb scare on the nightof the first performance of a particular run? If so, which one, did the scare have anything to do with the show, and did it affect it?

Also under 'changes' you mention "countries translation". Should that be "country's translation". I think it might work better if you reword it so that you say something along the lines of 'The English title is so well-known that it is very rarely translated into the native language of the countries where it is performed.'

Otherwise, looking good I think.

updated have used your sentence David B so am wondering whether you would like a reference.

No credit needed for one sentence. I'm still not sure about the bomb scare thing - was the bomb scare at the theatre or in London in general?

I've read a bit about Cats in Germany. It ran in Hamburg for 15 years, from 1986 to 2001, then moved to Stuttgart, but apparently, the company went bankrupt, so it was sold and altered and went on tour, starting in Berlin.
It might be worth mentioning, that the over 9,000 performances were in London alone. (There were 7,485 during the 20 years in New York, etc.)
Oh, and W**i Germany says, that no other musical has ever won so many Toni awards.
Looks as if nobody's gone through spelling and grammar yet?
A few things :
>>, leotards, leg warmers and wigs are often used to cover the head and cover the actors real hair.<< actor's real hair
>> Bonnie Langford among others, enchant their audiences night after << enchanting

>>derives from T.S. Eliot's nieces poor attempt to say <>, in Sweden is set on rooftops and in Finland << Sweden, it is set...

Oh, and maybe it's worth noting that the song 'Memory' became a hit, sung by Barbra Streisand, Elaine Paige and Angelika Milster, among others.
According to W**i Germany, Memory is the only song that's only loosely related to a TS Eliot poem, because Nunn wrote the text himself, based on verses and ideas from Eliot's 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'.
Nowhere does W**i Germany mention a bomb scare, though.