Varjak Paw – The Musical!

Earlier this year, I had the enormous pleasure of visiting Mercenfeld Primary.  The brilliant teacher who invited me, Amber Rao, told me they were planning to stage a musical version of Varjak Paw.  And they did: it was staged at the end of last term!

I heard all about it on Twitter, where people were saying it was the best show they'd ever seen.  I was absolutely knocked out when I saw the pictures: it looks seriously brilliant.  So here are some of them, with huge thanks to Amber and everyone at Mercenfeld for making such a fantastic show from my book – I am so honoured!!!

PS! Mercenfeld have now posted a video of the Varjak Paw musical!

Everybody Wants To Be A Cat!

Last night, I had the absolute honour of attending Varjak Paw: The Musical, staged by the amazing Year 6 at New North Academy, and directed by the brilliant Fiona Gunn-Stokes!

I visited New North Academy earlier this year; here's the blog I wrote about it at the time.  You can see from all the comments just what a fantastic group of readers and writers they are.  So when they told me they were going to do a musical production of Varjak Paw as their end of year show, I couldn't wait!

It was absolutely brilliant.  They did both Varjak Paw and The Outlaw Varjak Paw in one great big epic story; and they did musical numbers including Everybody Wants To Be A Cat, Love Cats, and Stray Cat Strut!

There were fantastic costumes, make-up and sets; brilliant acting, singing and dancing; terrific use of video for the dream sequences...  it had everything you would want from a stage show!  But for an author to see his characters brought to life like that – it was an incredible experience.  I have to admit, I got quite emotional watching it... though I was definitely not the only one!

So I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone involved – and good luck with everything you go on to do in your lives.  I think you are absolute superstars.  Keep the Way alive!