Space Cats (An Intergalactic Feline Musical)

Laika, the dog that the USSR launched into space in 1957, looks at us, floppy-eared. He opens his mouth and sings, dolefully. Perhaps there is hope in space for this young street mutt! Perhaps leaving the cold streets of the Soviet Union will result in planets full of bones!

This is the narrative that the unsuspecting audience is lulled into with the opening of Space Cats. The opening is sweet and unassuming. It is sincere.

The curtain draped midway across the stage is drawn aside. Let there be light, lycra, lascivious lyrics and 30 disco balls. Let there be hetero-eroticism, homoeroticism, and a cat in a bin. Let yourself rock forward on the chair and sink back into it laughing.

Writer and director (and Bin-Cat) Samantha Young has created a world tantalisingly alien yet hauntingly similar. She has crafted a hyper-nonsense comedy that satirises authoritarian world views. The question that struts its way across the stage is simple: "Why aren't we getting along again?" Infinitely complex in the strange world we live in, it is infinitely entertaining in its glitter-splattered soiree.

At one hour, the show keeps to its limits. Its action is complemented fantastically by the lighting design and the sound design thrusts the audience into the musical numbers buoyantly. With this production it's a come-for-the-ludicrous and stay-for-the-quality. The performers' commitment to their roles (and to their delectable lycra body-suits) tickles even the grouchiest theatre-goer.

Get along to see the felines (and Laika) sex it up with sparkles and song in what culminates in a truly original theatre experience.