Cats (Musical)
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50 free Cats (Musical) trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cats should not have worked. It has almost no plot, no spoken dialogue and a cast dressed as felines singing verse that a serious modernist poet wrote to amuse his godchildren. Investors stayed away, a leading lady was injured shortly before opening, and the key song had no words until previews. It went on to run for decades on both sides of the Atlantic and to change how big shows are made, sold and toured. This quiz covers the whole phenomenon. There are questions on the Jellicle tribe and what each cat does, on the songs and where their words came from, and on the people who built the show, from its composer and creative team to the first casts in the West End and on Broadway. A full set of questions deals with the screen versions: the 1998 film shot with veterans of the theatre production, and the star-filled 2019 movie that critics savaged. It is written for theatre fans, cast members past and present, and anyone who has ever left the auditorium humming. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Andrew Lloyd Webber ballad, sung in Cats by a faded glamour cat, had been recorded around 600 times by 2006?
Memory
Memory had been recorded about 600 times by 2006, in styles from easy listening to techno. Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis are among the stars who covered it.
Q 02Which actress snapped her Achilles tendon rehearsing Cats in 1981 and had to give up the role of Grizabella?
Judi Dench
Judi Dench withdrew a week before the first preview. Nearly four decades later she finally appeared in Cats on screen, as the Jellicle leader in the 2019 film.
Q 03Which rock star did Andrew Lloyd Webber say the swaggering Rum Tum Tugger in Cats partly pays homage to?
Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones was a model for the Tugger, who struts in to a rock song. The 2014 West End revival reworked the character as a street rapper.
Q 04Which villain in Cats did T. S. Eliot model on Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes?
Macavity
Macavity borrows Moriarty's tall, thin frame and domed forehead, and the name itself puns on the professor's. Eliot was a devoted fan of Conan Doyle's detective stories.
Q 05In which sitcom is Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield forever taunted for having turned down the musical Cats?
The Nanny
The Nanny made a running gag of Sheffield's rivalry with Andrew Lloyd Webber. The joke has a real echo: major investors did refuse to back the show before it opened.
Q 06In Cats, where does the one cat chosen each year at the Jellicle Ball ascend to be reborn?
The Heaviside Layer
The Heaviside Layer is a real band of the upper atmosphere, predicted by physicist Oliver Heaviside. Eliot made it a cat heaven in an unpublished poem, and the show's director built the yearly ritual around it.
Q 07Which pop star played the flirtatious Bombalurina in the 2019 film of Cats and co-wrote its one new song?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift wrote the lyrics and shared the music credit with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Their song earned a Golden Globe nomination even though the film itself was panned.
Q 08What setting did designer John Napier fill with oversized props so the Cats cast looked cat-sized?
A junkyard
A junkyard of scaled-up rubbish stays on stage all night with no scene changes. The original Broadway production used more than 2,500 giant props, spilling across the whole auditorium.
Q 09Whose animation studio planned a cartoon version of Cats set in wartime London before closing in 1997?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg's studio Amblimation developed the film in the 1990s, but the project died with the studio. A filmed stage version went straight to video the following year instead.
Q 10How did Andrew Lloyd Webber personally help fund Cats when major investors refused to back a show about cats?
Remortgaged his house
He remortgaged his house to cover the theatre's down payment, and later said a flop would have ruined him. The rest came from 220 small investors found through newspaper adverts.
Q 11Which wise patriarch in Cats makes the Jellicle choice each year and is kidnapped by the villain's henchmen?
Old Deuteronomy
Old Deuteronomy takes his name from the biblical book of law, fitting for a cat who sits in judgment. Unlike the unitard-clad ensemble, he wears a loose, shaggy coat and a full beard.
Q 12Which tuxedo cat in Cats restores the lights by magic and performs 24 consecutive spinning fouettés?
Mr. Mistoffelees
Mr. Mistoffelees takes his name from the demon Mephistopheles, though he is a showman rather than a menace. The run of spins is known as his Conjuring Turn.
Q 13Which orange tabby in Cats rides the night mail trains and has a steam engine assembled on stage during his song?
Skimbleshanks
Q 21Which white kitten in Cats opens the Jellicle Ball with a ballet solo yet has no solo singing part?
Victoria
Victoria is pure dance on stage, yet the 2019 film rebuilt its whole story around her. Her costume is not truly white: faint gold or grey markings stop the stage lights washing it out.
Q 22Which seemingly lazy tabby in Cats spends her nights teaching mice and cockroaches, then leads a tap routine?
Jennyanydots
Jennyanydots is the Old Gumbie Cat, and her bulky costume comes off mid-song to reveal a bright orange and yellow flapper outfit. Rebel Wilson played her in the 2019 film.
Q 23Which fat cat in Cats wears white spats on a black coat and dines at London's gentlemen's clubs?
Bustopher Jones
Skimbleshanks is the Railway Cat, unofficially in charge of a train that will not leave without him. Eliot's poem about him opens as a parody of a Rudyard Kipling verse.
Q 14Which West End star replaced an injured colleague as Grizabella in 1981 and scored a UK Top 10 hit?
Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige heard an instrumental of the show's big ballad while driving home and resolved to sing it; the composer rang the next morning. She returned to the role for the 1998 film.
Q 15Which Broadway venue had part of its roof torn through for Cats, which then stayed for nearly 18 years?
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre got a $2 million makeover, with the stage thrust forward and the roof opened for Grizabella's final ascent. Restoring the building afterwards cost about $10 million.
Q 16Which opera composer's style did Andrew Lloyd Webber imitate in the tune of Grizabella's great ballad in Cats?
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini was the model, and the tune was first meant for an abandoned project about him. Fearing he had copied a real aria, Lloyd Webber asked his father, an expert on the composer, to check.
Q 17In Cats, which rival animals fight a street battle until the Great Rumpus Cat scares them off?
Dogs
Dogs from two rival tribes, the Pekes and the Pollicles, clash until the Rumpus Cat frightens them away. The cats act it out as a play for their leader, a number UK and US productions moved to Act II in 2016.
Q 18Which member of the original 1981 London cast of Cats went on to marry its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman played the kitten Jemima, having already had a chart hit with a song about a starship trooper. She arranged her own private audition for the show.
Q 19Which musical did Cats overtake in June 1997 to become the longest-running show in Broadway history?
A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line lost the record at performance 6,138. Cats held the title until January 2006, when another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, The Phantom of the Opera, passed it.
Q 20Which country built a theatre specially for Cats in 1983 and has since staged over 10,000 performances of it?
Japan
Japan's Shiki Theatre Company gambled on an open-ended run at a time when shows there were booked month by month. It paid off: more than 10 million people have seen the production.
Bustopher Jones is the Cat About Town, respected by every other Jellicle. In the original London cast he was played by Brian Blessed, who doubled as the tribe's elderly leader.
Q 24In Cats, what was the frail old cat Gus, short for Asparagus, famous for being in his younger days?
A stage actor
A stage actor of renown, Gus now lives on his memories with Jellylorum as his carer. His song is written as an old-fashioned music hall number to match his nostalgia.
Q 25Which grey tabby narrates Cats, protects the tribe and fights off the villain who kidnaps its leader?
Munkustrap
Munkustrap is second-in-command of the Jellicles and sings several songs introducing the other cats. Eliot gave him only a passing mention, in the poem about how cats are named.
Q 26Which mischievous cat burglar in Cats, played in 1981 by Bonnie Langford, is Mungojerrie's partner in crime?
Rumpleteazer
Rumpleteazer and her partner knock over Ming vases and loot their own family's home. Eliot's poem implies both are male, but the musical made her female.
Q 27Which Royal Shakespeare Company chief directed Cats and wrote the words to Grizabella's famous ballad himself?
Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn was thought too highbrow for a musical, and he finished that lyric only once previews were under way. He also wove the separate poems into a single story.
Q 28Which Cats choreographer had the show's original West End home renamed in her honour in 2018?
Gillian Lynne
Gillian Lynne became the first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her. She and her dancers had to perform every part of a 13-minute sequence to persuade the composer to keep it.
Q 29Which producer brought Cats to the stage in 1981 and insisted every touring version replicate the original?
Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh cloned the staging worldwide, which pushed regional theatres to upgrade in order to host it. In 1981 he refused to delay previews, to quash rumours of a looming flop.
Q 30On the famous black Cats poster, what forms the pupils of the pair of yellow cat's eyes?
Dancing figures
Dancing figures in silhouette sit inside each eye of the design by the agency Dewynters. Early adverts showed no cast and no review quotes, making the logo itself the star.