#laura bishop

[white-cat-of-doom]

A news segment featuring current Australia Rumpleteazer Savannah Lind and original cast member Rumpleteazer Laura Bishop on the 40th anniversary of the show.

26 July 2025.

[bombateazer]

Just thinking about them

[junkyard-gifs]

Like mother, like daughter:

1, 2, and 3: Laura Bishop, who originated Rumpelteazer in Australia (Sydney 1985)

4: Her daughter Dominique Hamilton, who’s currently playing the same role in the 2020 Asia tour! Pictured here in her costume from the 2014 Asia tour, the same design as her mother’s, before the Australasian productions changed to imitate the London designs.

[rainingmusic]

Howard Jones - Things Can Only Get Better

[shairaluna]

Fiona & Laura June 2017

[junkyard-gifs]

Australian productions, 1985 onwards

(Sydney 1985: Laura Hamilton/Bishop as Rumpelteazer, Grant Smith as Bustopher, and Christopher Hall as Mistoffelees)

Time for the fifth production for my CATS 40th anniversary series: Australia 1985!

This production’s a tricky one - mostly because I am not aware of any footage for the first twenty years or more. By that stage, of course, it isn’t ‘the’ Australian production, but a whole family of productions sprung from that one source.

(Melbourne 1987: Femi Taylor as Bombalurina, and Sean Hingston as Plato)

Properly speaking, it’s the parent of the Hamburg production (though that later drew closer to the Broadway tradition). The original production continued like a long-stop tour for about a decade...

(A great shot from 1993 of the characteristic wig shapes (which only got wider from then on!).)

At the end of the 1990s it evolved in the Australian 'circus tent' tour. That was the basis for the South Africa / World Tour production (2001–05)...

(Circus tent tour, c. 2000: finale, and Cara Dinley as Demeter.)

... then it was also the parent of the the Korean productions in 2008 and 2011, the Australasian production of 2007–10, the China production of 2012, and the 2014 Asia tour.

From a technical point of view, it’s also the parent of the 2015 Australia revival and the 2017 and 2020 Asia tours, though the former was a curious hybrid of designs and the latter two have adopted the London revival designs and changes. So the major continuity is in management and a few key cast / artistic members who have been present though that transition (e.g., Thalia Burt, Holly Meegan, Aaron Lynch, and particularly Andrew Dunne).

But since I'm focussing on the earlier productions for this project, let's close with the curtain call sequence from the 2011 Korean production! Some actual footage, hoorah.

The first eight cats are the swings: all named, bringing the total number of cats up to 30!

So far as I can make out they are:

Girls (left to right): Jemima, Etcetera, Electra, Olivia

Boys (left to right): George, Victor, Admetus, Quaxo

Then the sequence is:

Sillabub, Pouncival, Jenny, Skimble, Tugger, Bomba, Alonzo, Demeter, Plato, M&R, Jellylorum, Gus, Munkustrap, Grizabella, T&C, Misto, Victoria, Cassandra, Deuteronomy, and - well, you know who at the end!

[bombateazer]

Like mother like daughter // Laura and Dominique Hamilton

[bombateazer]

If you don’t get this I’ll cry