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robert donat - gus, the theatre cat lyrics

gus is the cat at the theatre door
his name, as i ought to have told you before
is really asparagus. that’s such a fuss
to pr+nounce, that we usually call him just gus
his coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake
and he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake
yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of cats –
but no longer a terror to mice and to rats
for he isn’t the cat that he was in his prime;
though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time
and whenever he joins his friends at their club
(which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)
he loves to regale them, if someone else pays
with anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days
for he once was a star of the highest degree –
he has acted with irving, he’s acted with tree
and he likes to relate his success on the halls
where the gallery once gave him seven cat+calls
but his grandest creation, as he loves to tell
was firefrorefiddle, the fiend of the fell

“i have played,” so he says, “every possible part
and i used to know seventy speeches by heart
i’d extemporize back+chat, i knew how to gag
and i knew how to let the cat out of the bag
i knew how to act with my back and my tail;
with an hour of rehearsal, i never could fail
i’d a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts
whether i took the lead, or in character parts
i have sat by the bedside of poor little nell;
when the curfew was rung, then i swung on the bell
in the pantomime season i never fell flat
and i once understudied d+ck whittington’s cat
but my grandest creation, as history will tell
was firefrorefiddle, the fiend of the fell.”
then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin
he will tell how he once played a part in east lynne
at a shakespeare performance he once walked on pat
when some actor suggested the need for a cat
he once played a tiger++could do it again++
which an indian colonel pursued down a drain
and he thinks that he still can, much better than most
produce blood+curdling noises to bring on the ghost
and he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire
to rescue a child when a house was on fire
and he says: “now then kittens, they do not get trained
as we did in the days when victoria reigned
they never get drilled in a regular troupe
and they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop.”
and he’ll say, as he scratches himself with his claws
“well, the theatre’s certainly not what it was
these modern productions are all very well
but there’s nothing to equal, from what i hear tell
that moment of mystery
when i made history
as firefrorefiddle, the fiend of the fell.”

- robert donat lyrics

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