Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats has landed on its feet in Plymouth, launching a major UK tour following a hugely successful summer season at London's Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.

Directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie, this reinvention of one of musical theatre's greatest successes of the eighties is a dazzling fusion of music, movement and theatrical imagination.

From classical ballet to contemporary dance, jazz and breakdance, the choreography embraces an astonishing variety of styles at breathtaking speed. These performers are athletes as well as charismatic cats, combining extraordinary physical agility with the individual personalities that make T.S. Eliot's feline creations so memorable.

No moggy can spin on its head like Jet Yau, whose Mr Mistoffelees delivers the show's most astonishing acrobatics. Many of the cats in this show can perform backflips, but if you need someone to dance on their shoulders, this is one supple dancer.

Overall, while the dancing provides much of the spectacle of Cats, it is Louise Dearman who supplies the production's emotional heart.

As Grizabella, the once-glamorous cat now shunned by her companions, Dearman is stunning. Her rendition of Memory, a hit for Elaine Paige in its day, builds to a climax of vocal power that it almost stops the show. She belts it out, composed and compelling, yet never sacrificing the vulnerability and longing of this song's heart. It is a performance to remember. There's a taster of the number just before the interval, leaving you thinking 'Is that it?' It isn't.

Elsewhere, the company brings infectious energy to the gathering of Jellicle cats, each hoping to be chosen by Old Deuteronomy for a new life. The musical's unconventional storyline remains decidedly thin, but that hardly matters when the characters are so engaging and the entertainment so exuberant.

McOnie's production successfully breathes new life into a show that first conquered the West End in 1981. But this new production gives the material a fresh, contemporary energy while preserving the musical magic that has attracted audiences worldwide for more than four decades.

The result is a feast of movement, music and theatrical invention, performed by an exceptionally talented company. Whether you're a lifelong admirer of Cats or encountering the Jellicle tribe for the first time, there's plenty here to make you purr with delight. Feline great, no less.

Cats continues at Theatre Royal Plymouth until Saturday 17 October. Its next West Country engagement is at the Bristol Hippodrome, from Tuesday 24 to Saturday 28 November.

An interview with performer Briana Craig, who plays Rumpleteazer is on this week's Devoncast, which is on Devoncast Radio now, or download the podcast.