First production photos from the Cats UK and Ireland tour

Mark Senior shot them, and the pictures make one thing plain: Drew McOnie’s production is built around light. A huge circular moon hangs over the set in almost every frame. In some shots it glows white; in others it burns orange. Beneath it the company crouches, sprawls and leaps through drifting haze.

The tour opened at Theatre Royal Plymouth on Tuesday 6 October 2026, following the production’s summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, where McOnie is artistic director. He directs and choreographs.

Dearman is one of three performers taking turns as Grizabella on the road. Alice Fearn and Rachael Wooding are the others, and the stops each of them plays were set out when the casting was announced. Another frame catches Patricia Zhou as Cassandra, mid-air in a full split.

Around them, the touring company is Fin Adams (Alonzo), Kalisha Amaris (Old Deuteronomy), Carla Bertran (Electra, and co-dance captain), Elliot Broadfoot (Bustopher Jones / Gus), Matthew Caputo (Skimbleshanks), Josie Chambers-Sims (Syllabub), Briana Craig (Rumpleteazer), Katie Dunsden (Bombalurina), Joshua-Samuel Freeman (Tumblebrutus), Regan Garcia (Pouncival), Hannah Joseph (Victoria), Taziva-Faye Katsande (Tantomile), Diante Lodge (Macavity), Owen McHugh (George), Danny Nattrass (Mungojerrie), Millie O'Connell (Demeter), Andrew Parfit (Coricopat), Lucie-Mae Sumner (Jellylorum / Griddlebone), Laura Tyrer (Jennyanydots / Gumbie Cat), Jaydon Vijn (Rum Tum Tugger), Jack Wilcox (Munkustrap), Jet Yau (Mr. Mistoffelees) and Zhou. Taela Yeomans-Brown is a swing and co-dance captain, and Grace Burrows, Aaron Jenkins, Shona Mairi Masson, Dean Rickards and Nathan Rigg are swings.

The source is still T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, set to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s score, but this version relocates the tribe to London’s streets: strays and misfits converge somewhere between Euston station and Victoria Grove, and every one of them is angling to be singled out under the Jellicle moon. The big numbers stay in, from Macavity: The Mystery Cat and Jellicle Ball to Memory.

The musical first opened at the New London Theatre in 1981 and stayed there for 21 years, giving almost 9,000 performances and collecting the Olivier and Evening Standard awards for Best Musical. Broadway followed in 1983, with seven Tony Awards including Best Musical and an 18-year run.

Michael Harrison presents the tour for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals. Alongside McOnie, the creative team is Sami Fendall (set, costume and wigs), Jessica Hung Han Yun (lighting), Adam Fisher (sound), Guy Common (makeup), Ingrid Mackinnon (intimacy director), Kev McCurdy (fight director), Will Burton (casting director) and Alex Parker (musical supervisor).

From Plymouth the tour heads around England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland until June 2027: