CATS Reviews: What the Critics Say
CATS played at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre from 25 July to 19 September 2026, in a new staging by Drew McOnie, the theatre's own Artistic Director. It opened to the press on 7 August. Ratings ran from three stars to five, and what separates the two ends is not what anybody thought of the production.
The Critics' Verdict
The reviews do not disagree about this production. They disagree about CATS.
Read across them and the description of what McOnie has made is almost identical every time: the fur and leg warmers are gone, the costumes are sleek, the dancing has been pushed to the front, and a steel moon hangs over everything. Nobody disputed that it worked.
The split arrives one sentence later, over what to make of a musical with no plot in it. The four-star reviews take the view that dancing is what CATS always had, so leaning into it is the right trade. The three-star reviews take the view that the dancing has crowded out the little story there was. Both sides blame the musical rather than the staging, which is unusual and it is why the lower ratings here still read warmly.
Five stars came from LondonTheatre and Musical Theatre Review. Four from the Times, the Telegraph, WhatsOnStage, BroadwayWorld and City A.M. Three from the Guardian, the Independent, Time Out, The Stage and London Box Office. Nothing went below three, and no national daily went above four.
What the Reviews Praised
That it has taken the show back from the 2019 film. This is the single most repeated idea in the set, and not one review dissented from it. James Hall in the Telegraph (4/5) wrote that the revival "has rescued the musical from Hollywood". Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (5/5) said it "banishes all thoughts of the nightmarish 2019 movie".
The dancing, which is the production. Donald Hutera in the Times (4/5) called it "wall-to-wall choreography that at its best lifts the source material to a new level". Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4/5) described bodies unfurling "from the tip of their fingers to the points of their feet, mimicking the way muscles run gently through real cats' bodies". Andrzej Lukowski at Time Out (3/5) drew the sharpest line between this and the original: "high energy and aerobic in the original, sinuous and twitchy under McOnie".
Jaydon Vijn's Rum Tum Tugger, named by more critics than any other performance. Arifa Akbar in the Guardian (3/5) had him singing "with the hip-thrusting swagger of a young Mick Jagger, David Bowie and an alley cat on heat, rolled into one", with enough personality that "you wish the others could all be a little more Rum Tum".
The park, once the sun has gone. Akbar wrote of trees that "swish around their nocturnal prowls" while the moon "shines down on their song and dance". Crompton found it "often truly enchanting", with "the night-time shadows lengthening around the huge Jellicle moon".
Where Reviews Were Mixed
The plot, and nobody blamed this production for it. Hall put it bluntly: "the big issue with Cats, and it's sadly an intractable one, is its plot. Or, should I say, lack of it." Crompton simply noted that "the plot, famously, is not the point."
Whether the dance has crowded out the show. Akbar's reservation is that it "seems like Cats: The Dance", giving "some lovely expressive scenes" but making the structure "even more disjointed, with less of a story to bind it", and she found some of the movement "verges on corny and slows the pace considerably". Crompton saw the same thing from four stars and was content with it: things "proceed at a stately pace".
Whether a newcomer will take to it. Alice Saville in the Independent (3/5) drew the line most clearly, writing that enjoyment "depends on your tolerance for watching performers prance about in unitards, intoning absolute nonsense as though they're imparting the deepest secrets of the universe", and adding that she meant it "with the greatest of affection".
Whether it is bold enough. Lukowski's objection runs the opposite way to everyone else's. McOnie "doesn't really try to find new depth or meaning", he wrote, making this "refinement, not reinvention" next to the same theatre's Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Growltiger's Last Stand, the pirate number most productions cut and this one restores. Saville called it "a highlight, full of old-school, kid-thrilling, derring do". The Telegraph wanted it darker and found "more of a panto element" than the original had. The Stage (Tom Wicker, 3/5) thought it went on too long.
Macavity, and this one matters if you are bringing a child. Saville described McOnie's "Krampus-esque spiked creation" as "pure 21st-century nightmare fuel", sitting oddly beside the family numbers either side of it. Lukowski enjoyed him, calling Dianté Lodge's Macavity "a brimstone-whiffing treat". The venue guides the show at 5+.
The daylight. Three critics arrived at this independently. Lukowski found the set and lights "patently better designed to be viewed after dark". Stuart King at London Box Office (3/5) wrote that it "looks better as the daylight dims". Saville found that "things work better in the second act, after the sun sets". An evening performance got the design at its best in its second half. A 2pm matinee was in daylight throughout.
One Thing About Memory
Grizabella is played by Rachael Wooding. She was unwell on press night, and Taziva-Faye Katsande, who is in the company as Tantomile, went on in her place. Swain is the only critic who records the reason. The Telegraph called the substitution "nominative determinism at its very best".
Memory is the number the reviews write about most, so the performance being praised is Katsande's. Akbar was the one dissenting note, finding the vocals faultless and the characterisation less polished.
What Audiences Said
The people who went were warmer than the press, and warm about the thing the three-star reviews were cool on. They wrote about the voices, the dancing, the sound and the setting after dark. The story, which was the critics' whole reservation, did not come up.
Was CATS Right for You?
If you wanted to watch dancing, yes. Every review agrees on that, at every star rating, and it was the thing this staging was built to do.
If the 2019 film put you off, yes. Putting distance between the show and that film is the one thing the critics were unanimous about.
At this theatre, an evening beat a matinee. The design was lit for the dark, and three critics said so without prompting from each other.
Less so if you need a story. The reservation that produced every three-star review is that there is not one. It is a fair warning and it is about CATS rather than about this production.
A younger child and Macavity. In this staging he arrived with fire about half an hour into the second half and he was meant to be frightening. Guidance was 5+, and under-4s are not admitted at all.
CATS After Regent's Park
CATS finished at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre on 19 September 2026 and there are no London tickets for it. No West End transfer has been announced. It tours the UK and Ireland from 6 October 2026 to 19 June 2027, opening at Theatre Royal Plymouth, and we sell London theatre only, so those go through the theatres themselves.
The reviews above are a record of press night, 7 August 2026, and they stand as written. If CATS transfers to the West End, these are the notices it brings with it. Who the cats are and what the songs are is in our CATS guide.
Sources
The Times (Donald Hutera, 4/5) · The Telegraph (James Hall, 4/5) · The Guardian (Arifa Akbar, 3/5) · The Independent (Alice Saville, 3/5) · Time Out (Andrzej Lukowski, 3/5) · The Stage (Tom Wicker, 3/5) · WhatsOnStage (Sarah Crompton, 4/5) · LondonTheatre (Marianka Swain, 5/5) · BroadwayWorld (Louise Penn, 4/5) · City A.M. (Adam Bloodworth, 4/5) · Musical Theatre Review (5/5) · London Box Office (Stuart King, 3/5) · Theatre Weekly · Everything Theatre · Box Office Radio