Swing Cats While most of the swing cats from the London production do not have official names, they do have their own destinct costumes. Their rarity makes them mysterious and fascinating. Sometimes they appear in the group cast photos. The swings had their own unique costumes because of the specific way Cats was cast, with a group of tall characters and a group of short characters, adults and kittens. Summer Strallen, for example, was a tall swing, perfect for understudying roles such as Cassandra. However she was often called on to cover Etcetera or Jemima, short kittens. She was too tall to wear a normal Etcetera costume, so she wore her swing costume. The swing costumes are designed to blend into the tribe, to look right for any character the swing might be covering at the time. The most well-known London Swing cat (see right) is sometimes called "Nameless Brown Queen", "Greycat" (costume more grey than brown sometimes), "Hisperia", or "Summer" - in honour of Summer Strallen, who wore the costume in the final London cast. Both Summer's parents, Sandy Strallen and Cherida Langford, were in Cats, and her aunt, Bonnie Langford, was Rumpelteaser in the original London cast, giving Summer a definitely feline pedigree!

Swing Cats

1993 London. Most of the swings are in the bottom row, but there's also a swing directly above Etcetera, and the understudy/walking cover Gus top right.

Easier to name the named characters in this image! Munkustrap centre, Electra behind to left. Swingcat in front of him. Swingcats behind him.
Demeter to the right. George in front of Demeter. Walking cover Gus behind her.

Rest of the same group of swings. Directly behind Victoria is Victor (not a swing, normal chorus cat).
Right of Victoria, at the back, Jennyanydots, in front of her, swingcat, to the right Bill Bailey. Centre swing tom, front Nameless Brown Queen swing.

From the back: Munkustrap; Swingcat
Swingcat; George; NBQ
Electra; Demeter; Coricopat; Swingcat
Tantomile

Victoria, NBQ, Victor
Almost-Jemima, Tabbygirl

03/10