Cats: stage vs screen

Cats opened on Broadway in 1982 as a sung-through dance show with almost no plot, built from T.S. Eliot's poems. Tom Hooper's 2019 film, with Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, and Taylor Swift, keeps most of Andrew Lloyd Webber's score but adds a clearer story, a new song, and computer-generated cat bodies. These are the main differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (1982)

Screen

Cats (2019)

1. Victoria becomes the main character

On stage, Victoria is a white kitten and a featured dancer, known for the ballet solo that follows The Naming of Cats, but she has few lines. The film makes her the lead: she is abandoned on the streets of London at the start and meets the Jellicles as a newcomer, so the audience learns about the tribe through her eyes.

2. A new song: Beautiful Ghosts

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift wrote Beautiful Ghosts for the film. Victoria (Francesca Hayward) sings it, Old Deuteronomy sings a reprise, and Swift recorded a version for the end credits. It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

3. Old Deuteronomy is a matriarch

On stage, Old Deuteronomy is the tribe's elderly male leader. The film recasts the role as female for Judi Dench, who had been cast in the original 1981 London production but had to withdraw after an injury.

4. Macavity kidnaps the competition

In the musical, Macavity appears briefly to kidnap Old Deuteronomy, then returns in disguise and is fought off by Munkustrap and Alonzo before escaping. In the film, Idris Elba's Macavity makes rival cats vanish one by one so he can be chosen himself, with Bombalurina helping him by drugging the tribe with catnip. Growltiger, who appears on stage only in Gus's memory of an old play, becomes Macavity's henchman.

5. A city instead of a junkyard

The stage show takes place in a single junkyard. The film spreads the action across nighttime London, holds the Jellicle Ball in an abandoned theatre, and ends with Macavity falling onto Nelson's Column.

6. Victoria joins in on Memory

On stage, Grizabella sings Memory, and the young kitten Jemima sings fragments of its melody at points in the show. In the film, Jennifer Hudson's Grizabella sings Memory with Victoria joining her, tying the new main character to the show's best-known song.

7. Some numbers left out

The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, part of the original Broadway production, does not appear in the film. Other numbers are shortened or restructured to make room for the new plot and for Beautiful Ghosts.

8. Digital fur instead of costumes

Stage productions rely on unitards, wigs, and makeup. The film covered its actors in computer-generated fur, and that look drew much of the criticism in reviews. The film won several Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Director.

Cats movie vs musical: FAQs