Cats and dogs
Sir: The usually admirable Alexander Chancellor's paragraph on Cats (16 May) barks up so many of the wrong trees simultaneously that we appear to be dealing with what Americans would call a 'dog'. Briefly to dispel a few of the myths: no, Lloyd Webber is not a box-office winner every time, as the receipts from Jeeves would indicate. Nor is it any more 'nationalist' to celebrate the fact that we can at last point to a British all-dance show of Broadway quality than to celebrate the fact that certain English chefs can now do a decent lasagne.
If 'the musical' is 'characteristically American', that would have been news to Gilbert, Sullivan, Noel Coward, Ivor Novell°, Sandy Wilson, Julian Slade and Lionel Bart; if 'the American musical has been dead for more than twenty years' it would be nice to know why Gypsy, Hello Dolly, Funny Girl, Mame, Sweeney Todd, Company, A Little Night Music, and even the dread Sound of Music show no sign of lying down. And if a producer, having invested a vast amount of other people's money in a difficult show at a difficult theatre is to be accused of 'opportunism' when he tries to publicise it by every conceivable means and medium, then one begins to wonder about the alternative. Were they supposed to keep Cats a secret and hope that enough passers-by in Drury Lane would magically happen upon it? Sheridan Morley
Punch, 27 Tudor Street, London EC4
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