Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of TS Eliot’s book of pet poems has added another big name to its A-list cast. Idris Elba has signed on to play Macavity (“the mystery cat”) alongside the likes of Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift in Cats.
Macavity is about as close as the story gets to a bad guy – getting one of the show’s standout songs about how much of a wrong’un he is. He cheats at cards, breaks glass, steals milk and controls a criminal empire of street cats to become known as “the Napoleon of crime”, and “a monster of depravity”. Crucially though, Mcavity doesn’t actually sing the song himself, so Elba might get away without any big musical numbers if Hooper sticks closely to the original.
Since there isn’t a whole lot of story in the stage musical though, it’s unclear yet how much Billy Elliot screenwriter Lee Hall will have to flesh things out around the songs.
Elba has played a cat before, in The Jungle Book, and he’ll taking on Macavity right after he’s finished playing another bad guy in Hobbs And Shaw, so the part seems ready made for him. He might not be used to all the Lycra though…
Cats is in pre-production now, and is aiming for a release in Christmas 2020.