Moon dance

"The memory returns . . ." goes the advertising catchphrase for Andrew Lloyd Webber's evergreen show Cats, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday. But for Chrissie Cartwright the memory has never gone away. Now in charge as both director and choreographer of the Cats tour that reached Oxford this week, she first became involved 20 years ago. "I got a phone call asking if I would be interested in working on the show. At that time Cats was about five years old, and they had a bit of a dip in standards. They wanted it to be spring cleaned. So I was brought in to do it."

Ironically, Chrissie and I are meeting at a location where no cat would ever dare show a whisker, or stretch a paw - unless he or she was cradled in the arms of a very rich guest perhaps. Sitting in the grand Victorian splendour of the Savoy Hotel foyer in London, Chrissie explained how her showbiz career began.

"I was taken to my first dance class when I was three. That was because there was some strangeness about my feet, which helped me when I was young, but hindered me later on! I loved it, so I continued to dance, and went to stage school at the age of 11. Then I started to go to the theatre, and see musicals and ballets - I trained in Coventry, so I was able to go to the Hippodrome Theatre there, which was still alive and well at the time. That was the start of it all."

Chrissie went on to appear in West End shows such as Billy, Evita and Barnum. "I was lucky. At the time I was performing in the West End, there was lots of interesting work about. There were opportunities in television too, and in dinner clubs, where there was cabaret - as opposed to the pole dancing you get nowadays. So you could do a television job during the day, a theatrical show in the evening, and a club after that. We worked really hard, but it was exciting to be around the West End at that time."

Then came a chance for Chrissie to try her hand at choreography. "I was performing in Blondel at the Aldwych Theatre, and a group of us decided to put on a production of Mack and Mabel. It had never been done in the West End. So we put on a full-scale show, with the proceeds going to charity. Cameron Mackintosh helped us - he was the producer we were working for, and he allowed us to use the theatre and the set. We had hundreds of girls dancing in the show, and I choreographed it. Gillian Lynne the original choreographer of Cats saw it, and sent me a note afterwards saying how thrilled she was to see my work, and hoped that she would be able to work with me in the future. About five or six months later, I got the phone call asking if I would be interested in working on Cats."

But, I suggested to Chrissie, as Cats had already been running in the West End for five years, some members of the cast might well feel: "Who does she think she is, coming in and telling me what to do.

"It was like that. It was very difficult. Cats is not an easy show to learn, so I had to master it well enough to have the confidence to go in and say: No, this isn't good enough'. There was a production in Vienna which Gillian Lynne had choreographed, and the standard of dance was particularly high. So I went there to learn the choreography, and I also had some time with Trevor Nunn the original director to work through the storyline of the show, and discover what he expected of it. Then I was thrown in."

Maybe it was sepulchral calm of the Savoy Hotel foyer, but Chrissie Cartwright struck me as almost too gentle and quiet for such a situation - not at all like some of the razor-voiced choreographers and ballet mistresses I have met in my time.

"I hope I'm fairly firm, but I try to do it in a non-threatening way!" Chrissie laughs. "My rehearsals are usually fun, I think. I certainly hope they're not unpleasant."

One of the things that really strikes you the first time you see Cats is the way in which feline body language and movement have been infused into the choreography. "Gillian Lynne obviously watched a cat very carefully when she originally created the choreography," Chrissie explains. "This has resulted in a style that is unique: it's a mixture of ballet, jazz, and cat movement. The other thing that's very interesting is the improvisational side of the show, in which all the cast are asked to observe in a cat something they think no one else will have noticed. It's the detail, not the obvious. They're told to banish the obvious."

So how does Chrissie go about auditioning and training new recruits? "Of course they have to have a high enough technical standard. But sometimes we'll forgo that for a spirit - I can't quite describe it, but it's something that I notice when they're moving, and when they're singing - they have quite a rigorous dance and singing audition.

"And sometimes it's to do with people writing to me over and over again, and saying: please, please, I am desperate to do Cats'. And I think, yes, that's a good spirit, come along and let me see. Most people who come to an audition know that it's a tough show to do, they know it's not going to be easy. Singing and dancing at the same time requires a great deal of stamina. As for the cat movements, I don't think there are any experts. When we improvise with each new group of performers, and they look slightly nervous about it, I remind them that there are no human beings who are experts on how a human being should become a cat."

It's time for Chrissie Cartwright to set off up the road - to visit a shoe shop in nearby Covent Garden. As the Cartwrights don't live in Oxfordshire, I can reveal that Chrissie was off to buy her 13-year-old daughter some special dance shoes for Christmas: "I tried to put her off dancing, but then I thought: Why shouldn't she have her chance too?' But I'm insisting that she also takes acting and singing lessons - there is less and less work about for people who can only dance."

One last question though: is Chrissie Cartwright a cat-lover herself? "It wasn't until after I had started working on the show that I was presented with a kitten as a Christmas present," she admits. "But I have been a cat-lover ever since."

Cats opened at the New Theatre, Oxford, on Tuesday and continues until Saturday, December 30.