After bringing Doig, a musical “with no singing, no dancing and very little music”, to the Tabard Theatre last year, playwright Greg Freeman and director-designer Ken McClymont are now staging their latest off-beat adventure, Beak Street, at the Turnham Green venue.

The play is set in a noirish Soho world in which gangster cats (yes, you read right) struggle for control of the streets, from Beak to Poland via Greek, after which they are named.

Freeman says the play was inspired by Sicilian Cats, a painting by Chiswick resident Ian Heath, and he says he hopes to capture the independent nature of his feline subjects.

“In the play we take the idea that cats aren’t loyal to each and if you aren’t loyal then there can’t be betrayal - it is opposite sides of the same coin,” he explains.

”I like the idea of applying feline values to a human world, cats behave in a certain way that but then so do humans. It has a message that loyalty isn’t always good for you. The main character, the Beak Street Cat, expects loyalty and things start to unravel from there.”

Freeman knows that the idea of a play in which the characters are all animals is a surreal one, yet he his confident that the production pulls off its anthropomorphical trick.

He adds: “When I was writing I did worry how it would be staged, but the actors are not wearing lycra like the actors in Cats and it is more about their behaviour.Sometimes you’ll forget they are cats but every now and then they’ll suddenly act like one - we play around with the idea.”

The play is performed by nine actors and the noir setting will be ehanced by a double bass player and saxophonist within the company who will provide the show with a suitably jazzy score. The world of gangsters and their shady millieu still fascinates audiences the world over but how does Freeman expect cat-lovers to take to his play?

“Its got something for everybody,” he replies.

“If cat lovers come they’ll enjoy it becasue of the cat theme, but if cat haters come they’ll also enjoy it because they’ll be a lot of dead cats!”

Beak Street, Tabard Theatre, Turnham Green, May 11-29, 7.30pm, £14/£12, tabardweb.co.uk. This show is not suitable for children.