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Final Tickets Now On Sale For The 40th Anniversary Tour Of Cats In Brisbane

18/11/2025 Breaking News

Final tickets have been released for the Brisbane season of the 40th Anniversary Australian tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical CATS which will play at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC for two weeks only from 6 to 22 February. Tickets have been released on pre-sale today with general public sales from Friday 21 November. Due to huge demand, one extra final performance has been added to the Brisbane season, on Tuesday 10 February at 7pm, and it is on sale now. The record-breaking, iconic production is currently playing in Perth after rapturous audience response and rave reviews in Sydney and Adelaide. ★★★★★ “Fun, energetic and nostalgic – CATS is the purrfect night at the theatre” – GlamAdelaide “Inexplicably magical” – First Class Magazine “Bursting with talent” – Stagenoise “This fresh production is a great way to celebrate 40 years” – AUReview “An immersive spectacle” – Sydney Morning Herald “Electrifying. A spectacle of transformation” – Theatre Thoughts

The coveted role of Grizabella, the former “glamour cat”, is played by Gabriyel Thomas (“Gabriyel Thomas’s rendition of Memory is so hauntingly beautiful it sends shivers down the spine” – Theatre Thoughts), while audience favourite Todd McKenney plays the dual roles of Bustopher Jones and Asparagus the Theatre Cat (“Todd McKenney has the audience in his paw thanks to his comic timing” – Adelaide Advertiser), and classical performer Mark Vincent returns to the musical theatre stage as Old Deuteronomy, the patriarch of the Jellicle tribe (“Mark Vincent brought sonorous gravitas” – Sydney Morning Herald). Recently seen as Roxie Hart in the sold-out national tour of Chicago, Lucy Maunder has taken on the role of Jellylorum, while the rebellious cat Rum Tum Tugger is Des Flanagan. WAPPA graduate Jarrod Draper plays Munkustrap, and returning to CATS after many years is Leigh Archer as the motherly character Jennyanydots, also known among the tribe as the “Gumbie Cat”.

The remainder of the company includes Sarah Bourke (playing Tantomile), Olivia Carniato (Demeter), Mia Dabkowski-Chandler (Bombalurina), Tom Davis (Skimbleshanks), Ella Fitzpatrick (Jemima), Charlie Follows (Bill Bailey), Joshua Gordon (Coricopat), Chaska Halliday (Cassandra), Dominique Hamilton (swing), Tim Haskayne (Mr Mistoffelees), Claudia Hastings (Victoria/ White Cat), Aimee Jones (swing), Savannah Lind (Rumpleteazer), Joe Miller (swing), Jake O’Brien (Mungojerrie), Xavier Pellin (swing), Guy Pik (Carbuckety), Rania Potaka-Osborne (Alonzo), Edward Smith (Admetus/ Macavity), Thalia Smith (swing) and Tod Strike (swing).

Todd McKenney, Lucy Maunder and cast of CATS (c) Daniel Boud_191.jpg

Gabriyel Thomas and the cast of CATS (c) Daniel Boud_057.jpg

“I’m thrilled to bring this 40th Anniversary Australian tour of CATS to Brisbane with the most fabulous cast,” said producer John Frost for Crossroads Live. “CATS was revolutionary when it began 40 years ago and Australia has an enduring love for the show. Now it’s time to let the memory live again. Melbourne, queue up to grab your tickets before they sell out as it’s only in town for five weeks!”

Based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, CATS has been captivating audiences around the globe since it opened at the New London Theatre (now known as the Gillian Lynne) in 1981, where it played for 21 record-breaking years and almost 9,000 performances, winning both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. Since then, CATS has been presented in over 50 countries, translated into 23 languages and has been seen by over 81 million people world-wide. On Broadway, CATS played for 18 years and won seven Tony Awards including Best Musical.

The musical tells the story of the Jellicle cat tribe. On just one special night of the year, all Jellicle cats meet at the Jellicle Ball where Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, makes the Jellicle choice and announces which of them will go up to “The Heaviside Layer” and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.

The timeless musical score includes the hit song Memory, which has been recorded by more than 150 artists including Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Nicole Scherzinger, Johnny Mathis, Liberace and Barry Manilow. With “timeless music, spectacular sets and a superb cast” (Daily Mirror), breathtaking choreography and of course the unforgettable Memory, CATS is a magical musical like no other.

Get your tickets now for this iconic musical at catsthemusical.com.au and let the memory live again.

BRISBANE SEASON
Venue: Lyric Theatre, QPAC
Season: 6 – 22 February
Performance Times: Tues-Thurs 7pm, Fri-Sat 7.30pm, Wed 1pm, Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm & 6pm
Bookings: catsthemusical.com.au

PERTH SEASON
Venue: Crown Theatre
Season: To 6 December
Performance Times: Tues-Sat 7.30pm, Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm & 6pm (schedule varies weekly)
Bookings: catsthemusical.com.au

MELBOURNE SEASON
Venue: Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
Season: 21 December – 31 January
Performance Times: Tues-Thurs 7pm, Fri-Sat 7.30pm, Wed 1pm, Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm & 6pm (schedule varies weekly)
Bookings: catsthemusical.com.au

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Adrift in New York

15/11/2025 Rob McKinnon🌟🎭

Adrift in New York Rating

★★★★★

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The Rep presents a masterfully executed traditional melodrama with Adrift In New York that requires the usual audience participation and is a thoroughly entertaining night at the Arts Theatre.

This style of melodrama emerged in France in the early nineteenth century and rapidly spread throughout the world becoming the favourite form of theatrical performances for the following century. A great number of plays were produced in this genre containing the staples of a love interest, moral conflicts, exaggerated acting in a fast-paced plot with music and happy conclusions. The audience is required to aah and ooh or boo and cheer and sing to the familiar songs if they want.

This story is set in the 1890’s and begins in the Weston family’s farmhouse where Aunt Sarah Weston (Jude Hines) and Martha Weston (Abigail Papps) are discussing the arrival of a letter for Nellie Weston (TJ Baker) from the villain Francis “Desperate” Desmond (Dylan Haar). Silas Weston (Russel Ford), Martha and Nellie’s father, announces that the wealthy Mr. Willoughby has been murdered and robbed. Nellie enters and it is discovered that Desmond has offered to take Nellie to New York to make her a great singer. The hero Jack Merriwell (LA Foale) arrives then Desmond and as the events unfold Desmond’s plot to steal the love of Nellie and to take over the farm which he believes has underground oil is revealed. The twists begin as the battle between good and bad engages.

The second act is set in a Bowery music hall then the conclusion in the third act is back at the farmhouse. The audience is superbly entertained at the start and end of each act with vaudeville sets by the wonderful chorus, including the hilarious balloon dance. There is also a segment where the audience can sing the classics, “Give My Regards to Broadway”, “A Bicycle Built for Two”, “Down by the Sea” and others.

Director Rose Vallen’s experience comes to the fore in this excellent production containing all the elements of a successful melodrama as the cast move seamlessly around the stage extracting the mandatory audience participation. The set design is minimal but effective. The music from the band, Sandi McMenamin and Rowan Dennis, is perfectly performed and holds the show together.

The cast is outstanding, Jude Hines expertise shines as she both masterfully handles the role of Aunt Sarah and guides the audience in eliciting the required responses to the hero and the villain. Newcomer Abigail Papps, in only her second production, has a first-rate grasp on the necessary exuberance required for a melodrama performance sparkling in the role of Martha. TJ Baker and LA Foale are similarly excellent, and Dylan Haar is terrifically dastardly as the villain. The rest of the cast and chorus are also marvellous, especially the scene stealing Penni Hamilton-Smith.

While a traditional melodrama may not be to everyone’s taste this production of Adrift in New York executes the genre expertly and is a great fun night for those who want to boo the villain and cheer the hero and sing to old favourites.

Reviewed by Rob McKinnon

Adrift in New York remaining sessions are:
15 November at 7.30 pm
16 November at 2.00 pm
19-21 November at 7.30 pm
22 November 2.00pm

Venue: Arts Theatre
53 Angas St Adelaide

Tickets: 8212 5777 or adeliaderep.com

To book tickets to Adrift in New York, please visit https://adelaiderep.com/season-2025/adrift-in-new-york.

Photographer: Richard Parkhill

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Cats

14/11/2025 Manuela Kacomanolis🥈🦉🎭

Cats The Musical Rating

★★★★★

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The opening night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats at the Crown Theatre, Perth, delivered a polished, high-energy revival that showcased the production’s enduring strengths of choreography and crystalline vocals.

The long-running musical has been entertaining audiences since 1981 but for prospective patrons unfamiliar with Cats, don’t attend the show expecting a plot or even any dialogue. You will have a much better appreciation for it if you go for the exquisite dancing, singing and overall visual extravaganza. Cats is more a sequence of character portraits of the feline characters stitched together by a very thin storyline about a Jellicle Ball for all the Jellicle cats.

The show made more sense when I discovered that it was based on a series of poems from TS Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” dating back to the 1930s. It is these poems that inspired the legendary Mr Webber to convert them into a musical.

I cannot fault any of the dancing or singing. The cast performed with remarkable precision and athleticism, sustaining demanding choreography. The unison work in the larger ensemble numbers was exceptionally tight. It is evident that the dancers are professional ballet and classical jazz dancers. The production’s success lies in the cumulative power of its choreography and vocal pieces rather than narrative complexity.

Bringing the cats to life are the dazzling costumes and richly detailed makeup which I was fortunate enough to see up close. Throughout the show, the performers would integrate themselves within the audience, purring, stretching and leaping up and down the aisles of the theatre.

The production’s scenic design embraces the junkyard setting, transforming the stage into an immersive, feline-sized world. An old oven, a rumpled shirt, car tires, these are rendered at magnified proportions so that the performers read unmistakably as cats in an oversized human environment.

The integration of car engine and police sirens sound effects and a sweeping “torch” effect as the cat ensemble scatter in hidden spots, transforms the junkyard into a living, reactive environment without relying on dialogue.

Gabriyel Thomas delivered a standout solo performance as the weary Grizabella The Glamour Cat, belting out the iconic Memory song.

Tim Haskayne was outstanding in his jazz ballet routine as the Magical Mr Mistoffelees who delivered a mesmerizing performance with impeccable control and grace.

I found it especially amusing and admire the dedication of one of the performers who remained on stage in character for the duration of the interval.

This staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats operates with a first-class polish that flows with effortless precision. It is more a mixture of a ballet performance and a musical rather than a conventional musical and in its entirety a form of art to enjoy.

To book tickets to Cats The Musical, please visit https://catsthemusical.com.au/tickets/perth/.

Photographer: Daniel Boud

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The Ride Of Your Life!

12/11/2025 Claire Mulcahy⭐

Ride the Cyclone Rating

★★★★★

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If you blended the dark wit of Heathers with the existential charm of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, you might come close to capturing the wild, weird brilliance of Ride the Cyclone, Sydney Musical Theatre’s latest production. This cult-favorite musical, written by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond, spins a tale that’s equal parts carnival nightmare, teen talent show, and philosophical meditation on what it means to live.

The premise is audaciously simple: six teenagers from the St. Cassian Chamber Choir die in a freak roller coaster accident. Now, trapped in a limbo-like carnival, they are offered one miraculous chance, by the mechanical fortune-teller Karnak, to sing their stories, and for one of them, to return to life. What unfolds is a haunting, hilarious, and unexpectedly moving journey through identity, regret, and the fragile beauty of being human.

Each number is a genre-hopping revelation. Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg’s biting self-importance (What the World Needs) crackles with manic energy, while Mischa Bachinski’s hard-edged rap ballad (This Song Is Awesome) hides a tender heart beneath its bravado. Jane Doe’s ethereal lament (The Ballad of Jane Doe) stops the show cold; a ghostly aria of lost memory that would feel at home in Phantom of the Opera’s darkest corners. And then there’s Constance Blackwood’s tearfully exuberant Sugarcloud, which blossoms into the musical’s emotional core: a celebration of joy reclaimed after despair.

Certainly a highlight of this production is the impeccable singing of the cast. Amira Clark as Ocean and Raven Swinkels as Jane Doe are absolute vocal standouts. Kielle Murillo as Constance and Xion Jarvis as Mischa display excellent comedic skills. Andrew Read and Lex Sywenkyj have the audience in stitches during their moments on stage.

The staging is a visual feast of carnival lights, decaying grandeur, and eerie automaton choreography. The ensemble choreographed by Elise Simpson works like a finely tuned ride mechanism: precise, kinetic, and emotionally fearless. Director Ssarah Shanahan has embraced the absurdity of the musical without losing the show’s heart, letting the humour sharpen rather than undercut the poignancy of the thematic concerns.

By the final reprise, Ride the Cyclone well and truly had the audience in its spell. It’s a production that dares to find joy in tragedy, laughter in death, and life in limbo. Beneath the spectacle lies a message that lingers: we are all, for better or worse, passengers on the same unpredictable ride.

To book tickets to Ride the Cyclone, please visit https://www.sydneymusicaltheatre.com.au/.

Photographer: Althaia Frost

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