(Thursday and Friday, July 12th and 13th)CAT is the story of ‘Dave the Cat’, and how he was sacked from the original production pf that famous musical ‘Cats’ on opening night, and has never quite recovered.
As he stands on stage in his ‘magnificent’ cat costume, he lets us into a world of backstage drama, romance and intrigue.
But as his story begins to unfold, his world becomes a much darker place.
The music ‘Cats’ ran for so long its tagline was ‘Now and Forever’, in poor Dave’s case his tagline was ‘Not now, Not ever’.
Written by Jamie Beamish and Richard Hardwick CAT is a one man play with a dark twist features original songs supposedly cut from several Andrew Lloyd Webber shows and never before heard on stage (but don’t tell Andrew).
CAT was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe 2013 where it played to packed houses and was an audience favourite as part of PBH’s Free Fringe programme, having to add extra performances due to popular demand.
It subsequently played in Ireland at the Imagine festival where it was the smash hit of the festival, returning for a second run due to popular demand.
In 2014 CAT enjoyed two sell out runs at The Etcetera Theatre in Camden and returned to the Edinburgh Fringe for one show only that year where it was over-subscribed and people had to be turned away.
A new two act version premiered at The Bread and Roses Theatre on London’s Fringe in 2015 and broke box office records for that theatre. CAT has since been performed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Münster, Germany and The Leicester Curve Theatre. In May 2017 CAT made its West End debut at London’s Ambassador’s Theatre to critical and popular acclaim.
Born and bred in Waterford, Jamie Beamish is well known to local audiences but the Waterford connection doesn’t end with Jamie. Richard Hardwicke’s Mam is originally from Cheekpoint and Richard still has family in the area.
