#clare rickard

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Tugger and Jelly have a fine day at the seaside.

Clare Rickard and Oliver Savile, UK tour 2013.

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Jellylorum Week Day 1 - Favourite Jellylorum Actors

I LOVE every single Jellylorum actor (how can I not?), but I do have three favourites that come to mind.

Susan Jane Tanner - Original London Cast (1981-1982) Jellylorum/Griddlebone and CATS (1998) Jellylorum

She IS Jellylorum. She originated the character in London, and I adore her singing voice and the ways she portrays Jelly. She is so kind and gentle! Some people dislike her in the 1998 film due to her singing and the fact she is older, but those people are very much wrong. In my opinion she is underappreciated in CATS, as with Jelly as a whole.

I am not surprised to see that basically everyone has Susan as their favourite Jelly.

Bonnie Simmons - Original Broadway Cast Jellylorum/Griddlebone (1982-1992)

My other favourite Jellylorum, and my favourite Griddlebone. I ADORE her singing and wish I could have seen her perform! This is some footage of her as Griddlebone that I would recommend anyone watch, as Growltiger’s Last Stand on Broadway was an EVENT. I am also a big fan of the Braodway design for Jelly, which has influenced and carried on through the years in other productions and non-replicas.

Another very underappreciated performer, considering she was the third longest serving original cast member in the original Broadway production, behind only Susan Powers (1982-1997) and Marlene Danielle, who stayed for all 18 years until 2000!

Megan Ort - Oasis of the Seas Cast 4 (2016) Jellylorum/Griddlebone and Broadway Revival 2016-2017 Cats Chorus (cover Jellylorum, Grizabella, Sillabub, and Jennyanydots)

I can say with confidence that no one in this fandom loves Megan Ort more than me. Maybe a contentious pick as a favourite Jelly considering that she was only technically a fully casted Jellylorum for eight shows in the RCCL before jumping over to the Broadway Revival as a Swing/Booth Singer, but Megan has a absolutely phenomenal voice! I recommend watching her as Griddlebone in the RCCL because she is very talented, and is one of the best Griddlebone actors!

Megan performed over 70 shows on Broadway as Jellylorum, Grizabella, and Sillabub (mainly Jelly and Griz), and she loved playing Jelly! She also was a split track Jellylorum/Sillabub for one performance, where as Jelly she also sang the vocal parts of Sillabub, such as The Moments of Happiness and before and during Memory, which would have been amazing to have seen! She never went on as Jenny from what I can find. As an aside, Megan is a GORGEOUS Grizabella and definitely my favourite when it comes to overall appearance with the revival changes in 2014. I would have loved to see a JellylORTum day on Broadway!

I have some other wonderful Jellylorum actors (under the cut due to length) that also deserve some praise!

Clare Rickard - UK Tour 2013-2014 and London Palladium 2014-2016 Jellylorum/Griddlebone, Grizabella cover, and Dance Captain

Claire deserves a fair amount of praise! She has a fantastic voice and is one of only two Jelly actors (that I know of) who also were Dance Captains in their productions. She perhaps is the most talented Jellylorum ever casted in CATS! A true triple threat of singing, dancing, and acting, Clare is an amazing performer!

Barbara Obermeier - Vienna Revival Jellylorum/Griddlebone and Grizabella cover (2019-Present)

Although I have not been fortunate enough to see Barbara either perform or sing, she is a fun person and she loves to perform. The fact that she is one of the cover Grizabellas in Vienna would indicate that she has a fantastic voice, and I would love to hear it!

Anissa Hartline - US Tour 5 Jellylorum/Griddlebone (2006-2008)

Anissa has a beautiful voice in her performances as both Jelly and Griddle, but one of the key reasons she is on here is that she is so loving and gentle during the performance of Gus the Theatre Cat. Her respectful admiration and cheerfulness for Gus is so soft, and she reminds me a lot of Susan Jane Tanner's performance in CATS (1998) (and then she comes out as Griddlebone and she can SING!). I also love her design and she deserves some praise!

Alice Batt - Asia Tour 2020 Jellylorum/Griddlebone

This list would not be complete without me mentioning the lovely Alice! She is a fantastic singer and I wish we could have seen her (and everyone) for a bit longer in the Asia Tour before it was abruptly closed! She is always cheerful and smiling in any picture I see of her, I also wish there was more footage of her! She also has my favourite UK based Jelly design, and I love that they made her more floofy than previous Jellys!

There are many other wonderful Jellylorum actors as well that I did not mention, but I do truly love every Jelly that I see!

I should also mention that I adore so many of the Jellylorum actors in the Shiki productions of CATS, but trying to pinpoint actors is very difficult due to the largely complex cast lists.

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Clare Rickard and Joanna Ampil in Cats, UK Tour 2013

[white-cat-of-doom]

Wrapping up the last of my CATS London Palladium items is this souvenir brochure from December 2014.

It is a fair sized book filled with wonderful preproduction pictures of the cast, and some from the UK Tour 2013-2014, which also means that there are some inconsistencies, perhaps most glaringly the fact that there is an Electra and chrous Grizabella (Sophia Ragavelas here) in the cast photos, two roles that did not exist in the actual Palladium production! There are also character design differences, seen best with Demeter.

Although the first cast was short-lived, they are immortalized here to a certain extent, and it is another piece that I love owning.

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You’re laughing. Bill Bailey fell on his butt trying to copy your cartwheels and you’re laughing. :(

Will Lucas as Bill Bailey, Dawn Williams as Jemima, Alice Redmond as Jennyanydots, and Clare Rickard as Jellylorum; UK tour 2013.

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Matt Krzan (Munkustrap) quizzing Clare Rickard (Jellylorum), London 2015.

... I notice she only says ‘Munkustrap because he’s here’...