Cats (musical) carrying Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy partway toward the sky; he then steps off so she can finish the journey on her own. Finally, Old Deuteronomy gives his closing speech to the audience ("The Ad-dressing of Cats") and the show comes to a close. A 1981 recording of the Original London Cast was released first on LP and cassette tape and later as a two-CD set. It contains the following tracks: Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the production of "Cats" is based on T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (1939), which the composer recalled as having been a
Beauty and the Beast (musical) Ashman and Menken's music. Several critics noticed the film's live musical potential, among them prolific "New York Times" theatre critic Frank Rich. Lamenting the Broadway selection at the time, Rich famously praised the songwriting duo for having written "[t]he best Broadway musical score of 1991", while hailing the film as a "better [musical] ... than anything he had seen on Broadway" in 1991. Rich's review would ultimately provide Eisner and Katzenberg with the confidence needed to seriously consider the film as a potential Broadway project. Disney was also inspired by the successes of Broadway musicals such as "Cats", "Les Misérables"