Garfield: The Musical with Cattitude

StageArt is a small professional company which is achieving a lot. Having last week presented us with Bare, the Musical, they were now to delight us with Garfield.

A one hour show for kids during the school holidays, this was a hoot. All the animals had tails, and minimal makeup, but it didn’t matter, as each one captured the essence of its character.

The set comprised a door with surrounds, a couple of sections of fence and a box for Garfield to sleep on. Nothing more was required.

It opened with Garfield asleep on his box, and when the audience was ready we heard some loud snoring. Then he had a dream that all his friends had remembered his birthday, but awoke to find no one had! He was certainly a grumpy cat.

Lachlan Graham was excellent as Garfield. A big man, he moved beautifully and had excellent comic timing. Grace Browne was his romantic interest, Arlene (behind lasagna, sleeping and lasagna), who was annoyed that he’d stood her up on their date on the back fence singing to the moon the previous evening. Slim and beautiful we knew instantly who she was portraying.

Alec Steedman was Jon, Garfield’s owner and slave, who looked appropriately gawkish. He was also the animal controller from whom the animals had to escape after they ran away. It was explained early that he couldn’t actually understand what the animals were saying.

Callum Warrender was very funny as Odie, the dog. At one stage he spent five minutes woofing out a story to the others before Garfield told us he had a new flea collar. Laura Greenhalgh was Nermel, who kept practising her cute faces.

All of them sang well, and there were some close harmonies. The choreography was tight and exciting, and the characters way over the top. The junior members of the reviewing team enjoyed it thoroughly.

Highly recommended for the school holidays.

Graham Ford

Photographer: Chris Parker.