Webber's Cats is poetry in motion

Twenty-three years ago Andrew Lloyd Webber composed a quirky musical inspired by TS Eliot’s collection of poem’s The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Today, Cats is the longest running West End musical, smashing the record of 6,137 performances in 1996 previously held by the Broadway production of A Chorus Line.

After a run of 21 years in London, the show is now on tour nationally, further boosting the staggering West End audience figure of eight million.

For the 55-year-old composer, who was knighted in 1992 and became an honorary life peer in 1997, there is little doubt about why Cats continues to prove so popular.

“I obviously think it starts with marvellous words from TS Eliot, I think those poems are timeless, and then it was given a brilliantly-invented production by Trevor Nunn [the director] and I think if you cast your mind back 23 years it was very inventive for its day, it was breaking every rule.

When it gets a good production I think it remains as fresh as it ever was.”

Lloyd Webber, who is currently writing a new musical based on the Wilkie Collins novel The Woman in White, has, unusually, had no hand in the tour production. For him, this is the way forward.

“I’ve come to the conclusion now that with new things that I’m doing, I really want an outside producer, I don’t want to be involved with the production of it.

“I’m able to judge this [the tour] production because, although it’s based entirely on the original work that was done in London, I have had no involvement with it at all.”

He has made some changes to the score though by adding in a song which was taken out of the original show, the Ballad of Billy McCaw, and removing “a rather silly, pastiche thing” called Italian Opera, which he says the producer, David Ian, was happy to let him do.

For the composer, handing over the production was an enlightening experience.

“I was able to come and see it with fresh eyes as it were and I was very, very pleased with it.”

As Lloyd Webber points out, he needs all his time to work on the many different projects he juggles on a day-to-day-basis.

In addition to his performance-based work, his company The Really Useful Theatre Group co-owns and manages 13 London theatres.

One of his most recent projects was to adapt the one-woman show Tell Me On A Sunday for Denise Van Outen, adding five new songs to the original score written for Marti Webb in 1979.

Lloyd Webber says it’s impossible to compare the two artists, but he is clearly impressed by the former breakfast TV presenter who won rave reviews from the critics when she starred as Roxie in Chicago in both the West End and Broadway.

“I think for a start Denise gives it [the show] a very modern take. She’s very much a girl of today and I wrote it all those years ago for a girl of about Denise’s age.

“She’s 28 now and she is the right age for it. It’s a remarkable performance. She’s unlike anyone else I’ve ever worked with really as a singer and I think that’s rather good.”

The list of stage musicals Lloyd Webber has created is seemingly endless and includes a string of hits like Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Starlight Express, Aspects of Love and Phantom of the Opera.

He also recently produced the Bollywood musical Bombay Dreams, which is now bound for Broadway after its success in the West End.

But it’s pretty lonely at the top for the composer, who says there’s no new work in musical theatre which he particularly admires – instead he looks to the past for inspiration.

“I’d love to have written My Fair Lady or South Pacific but you’re not envious of them you just think they’re wonderful pieces of work.”

And while Lloyd Webber is busy professionally, he also has a pretty hectic family life as the father of five children – two by his first wife Sarah Hugill, and three by his third and current wife Madeleine.

He was also married to the singer Sarah Brightman with whom he remains friends.

The composer, who’s estimated to be worth around £550m (€800m), has become a household name throughout the country but still finds it hard to understand why, as a non-performer, he’s something of a celebrity.

“Actually nobody really quite comes to terms with the fact that there isn’t anybody else to get out and in theory promote Cats.

“I don’t like doing it but it’s a funny thing for a composer of music who’s not a performer to actually be promoting and people don’t quite understand why it is I’m also known in another kind of way.”

It seems there’s still only one real star of the British musicals, whose versatility and ability to perform on demand sets him out from the rest – and that’s Lloyd Webber himself.