Andrew Lloyd Webber appears to throw major shade at James Corden’s ‘unfunny’ performance in Cats

Last year’s movie adaptation of popular stage musical Cats was universally savaged by critics, despite featuring an all-star cast.

And now months on, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of the original Cats musical, has thrown major shade at James Corden’s performance in the 2019 film.

The musical theatre impresario, 72, hinted that the chat show host’s turn as Bustopher Jones wasn’t to his liking and alluded that he wasn’t a fan of James’ off-the-cuff improvisation in the film.

Andrew recently recently held an online viewing party for the filmed 1998 stage version of Cats in honour of his late cat Mika, where he delivered live commentary throughout.

And while there, he appeared to take a swipe at the Tom Hooper directed flick, which also starred the likes of Judi Dench and Taylor Swift.

When the stage version of Bustopher Jones appeared on screen, Andrew appeared to make a dig at James’ interpretation, as he said: ‘Bustopher without interruption, as I wrote it. 

‘Do not be beguiled by other versions. Other versions with unfunny interpolations which I begged to be cut out.’

He continued: ‘I did manage to get the worst of them removed. I cannot tell you how absolutely un-Eliot it all was in this song.’ 

And though he failed to mention James by name, it was pretty obvious who he was referring to.

James wasn’t a fan of his own performance either it seems as it turns out he never actually watched the finished version of the film.

Speaking in an interview on Zoe Ball’s BBC Radio 2 show on Monday, he said when questioned about the project: ‘I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard it’s terrible.’

Director Tom Hooper’s extravagant rendering – with an A-list ensemble cast featuring the talents of Taylor Swift, Dame Judi Dench, Idris Elba and Sir Ian McKellen – received largely negative comments when it was released late last year. 

Branded an ‘all-time disaster’ by one critic, the film was slammed as ‘jarring’, ‘a huge failure’, ‘soulless’ and just plain ‘wrong’ by movie buffs on both sides of the Atlantic.  

Critics would argue that CGI is the least of its worries, with the Daily Telegraph branding Hooper’s film ‘an all-time disaster’ and giving it the ignominious honour of zero stars – the first in the publication’s history.

‘Once seen, the only realistic way to fix Cats would be to spay it, or simply pretend it never happened,’ writes review Tom Robey.

‘Because it’s an all-time disaster – a rare and star-spangled calamity which will leave jaws littered across floors and agents unemployed. For the first time since the head-spinningly dire dadcom Old Dogs in 2010, I’m giving a film no stars.’

Empire magazine was equally critical, but praised the film for its ‘craft and talent,’ while conceding that, visually at least, it is ‘bold and striking.’