Beverley Knight Heads to the Heaviside Layer in CATS at the Palladium

The Daily Mail writes that Andrew Lloyd Webber has picked Beverley Knight to lead the London return of Cats as 'Grizabella' this autumn. Not only that, but the famed composer cast her without an audition.

"I was stunned, because I don't have a musical theatre singing voice," she told the Mail. "I thought 'Wow! Where's this come from?' But I wasn't going to turn Lord Lloyd-Webber down."

Knight, known for her recent West End roles in THE BODYGUARD and MEMPHIS, steps into the role on October 23 for a ten-week run. Get a first look at her in costume, left!

The musical is also set to pounce back to Broadway in 2016 -- hopefully starring Nicole Scherzinger.

On just one special night of the year, all Jellicle cats meet at the Jellicle Ball where Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, makes the Jellicle choice and announces which of them will go up to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.

CATS, one of the longest-running shows in West End and on Broadway, received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981 where it played for 21 record-breaking years and almost 9,000 performances. The production was the winner of the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. In 1983 the Broadway production became the recipient of seven Tony awards including Best Musical, and ran for eighteen years. Since its world premiere, Cats has been presented in over 30 countries, has been translated into 10 languages and has been seen by over 50 million people world-wide. Both the original London and Broadway cast recordings won Grammy Awards for Best Cast Album. The classic Lloyd Webber score includes "Memory," which has been recorded by over 150 artists from Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis to Liberace and Barry Manilow.

Based on T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, the original creative team - Director Trevor Nunn, Associate Director and Choreographer Gillian Lynne, Designer John Napier and Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber - reunited to bring CATS back to the West End.

Photo Credit: Matt Crockett/The Daily Mail