Adaptations
In 1954 the English composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems in a work for speaker and orchestra entitled Practical Cats, which was recorded soon after, with the actor Robert Donat as the speaker. At about the same time period another English composer, Humphrey Searle, composed another narrator piece based on the poems, using the flute, piccolo, cello and guitar. This work, Two Practical Cats, consisted of settings of the poems of Macavity and Growltiger.
Probably the best-known musical adaptation of the poems is the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. This musical premiered in London's West End in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982, and went on to become the longest-running Broadway show in history, until it was beaten by another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, The Phantom of the Opera.
As well as the poems in this volume, the musical introduces several additional characters from Eliot's unpublished drafts—most notably Grizabella.
Read more about this topic: Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats