An Oscar-winning director. The world's biggest pop star. A classic West End musical. Judi Dench with a tail. The biggest gamble of the year

Ever since the trailer dropped the world has been mesmerized by Cats. We journey deep inside the maddest, milkiest film of 2019

- CHRIS MANDLE

IT WAS A day that, at first, seemed like any other. Thursday 18 July. People around the world were celebrating Nelson Mandela Day, Anton left the Love Island villa, and Mexican drug lord El Chapo was beginning his life sentence in prison. In San Diego, thousands attended the first day of Comic-Con, with Tom Cruise making a surprise appearance on stage to hype up Top Gun: Maverick.

The day was winding down. And then, at 10.07pm UK time, it happened. Accompanied by the slightly menacing promise, “This Christmas, you will believe,” the trailer for Cats was unleashed online.

First we saw humanoid forms scuttling across a dark, neon-lit alleyway. Then the swoosh of a tail. A maudlin song, ‘Memory’, kicked in, enhancing the feverish and surreal mood. And famous people began to appear, looking… different. Dame Judi Dench, both covered in fur and wearing what appeared to be a coat made of, well, fur. James Corden, encased in some sort of hairy tuxedo, appearing to spit in someone’s mouth. Taylor Swift, shaking catnip out of a bejewelled decanter. Some of the performers looked plausibly feline. Others — strange and whiskery — resembled escapees from the island of Doctor Moreau.

Roughly two minutes and 24 seconds after the trailer appeared online, the world went berserk. Jordan Peele shared a version of the trailer soundtracked by music from his doppelgänger horror Us. “Internet reacts in horror to ‘demented dream ballet’,” read one headline in The Guardian. “This is what the people in Bird Box were seeing,” said an online commenter. Naturally, someone photoshopped Nicolas Cage’s face onto a cat.