Andrew Lloyd Webber is threatening to sue a new parody musical about the Kardashians called (wait for it!) Katdashians! for using "no less than six songs" from his award-winning musical, Cats.
The 68-year-old composer has slapped the creators of the off-Broadway parody show with a legal warning letter for “willful infringement”.
Katdashians! Break the Musical! is described as a cross between the family’s reality TV show and Lloyd Webber’s Cats musical and features what its co-creators claim are parodies of songs featured in Cats .
“It is clear that the production is not a parody of Cats... Our client’s property is being extensively misappropriated. . . to parody another subject matter entirely,” the letter said, according to the New York Post.
Katdashians! co-creator Tobly McSmith said: “We were pretty shocked. We are fans of Webber and his work. We thought he’d enjoy the parodies we did of his songs, but apparently he did not.”
McSmith and his team have since agreed to replace any Cats songs with their own original tunes.
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Webber's version of Cats, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S Eliot, tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as the 'Jellicle choice' and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.
Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and has won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards.
The London production ran for twenty-one years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years, both setting new records.
Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical.
