VIDEO: Gerard McCarthy Stars in CAT, a Heart-Breaking Show-Biz Memory

Theatre lore is loaded with stories of actors who were replaced in rehearsals or during previews as a show made its way to opening night, sometimes resulting in a new performer receiving tremendous accolades and a prize or two.

That heartbreaking situation is tinged with a bit of animal cruelty in Jamie Beamish and Richard Hardwick's solo play, CAT, the story of Dave, an actor cast as Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, in the original West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's spectacularly successful adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," who saw his dreams of West End stardom suddenly kicked to the curb.

"He was cast in the original production of CATS in 1981 and ten minutes before curtain up he gets sacked by Andrew Lloyd Webber," Gerard McCarthy, who recently concluded a run of CAT at Belfast's Grand Opera House, explains to News Letter.

"In his mind he imagines that he would be as big a star today as Elaine Paige if he had not have been given the heave-ho. All these years later he is still wearing the costume, still doing the dance routines, still singing all the songs."

The role of the obsessively victimized Dave was originated by Hardwick when CAT premiered in the 2014 Edinburgh Festival, but McCarthy stepped into his paws last February for an engagement at The Courtyard Theatre in Newtownabbey. Its newest star followed drama school pursuing a career in musical theatre, but is better known for television work, such as his role as Kevin McSwain in BBC 2's BAFTA nominated drama THE FALL. Still, he holds a passion for song and dance shows.

"There's nothing like going to watch a musical with 40 or 50 dancers and one of them coming out and singing a huge big number. There's something so seductive, so wonderful about it."

But in CAT, McCarthy is out there alone, without the 40 or 50 dancers.

"It's just the hardest thing you can do. When you are first called up on stage and you're walking across towards the spotlight before it all begins it's just so terrifying that you wonder if you could maybe make a break for it, but the thought of people catching sight of a man in a catsuit on Glengall Street does hold me back!"

But working solo gives him a special kind of satisfaction.

"It's just you and the audience and you have absolutely nobody to back you up. But this is theatre in its purest form. It's just me up there telling a story. At the end of the night when you stand up and they are laughing and clapping it's just like nothing else in the world."

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