It is very interesting that Rebecca Frecknall has made her reputation directing the plays of Tennessee Williams when so many of his characterisations of women are so unkind. Can you think of a sympathetic female character in his plays?  Maybe the self-deluded Blanche Dubois and her sister Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire?  The mentally adrift sister Laura in A Glass Menagerie was based on his own sister but her mother Amanda doesn’t shine with motherly love but unbridled ambition.

So we come to Maggie, Brick’s wife (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, married to a man who doesn’t feel for her sexually and who is drowning himself in drink.  At the Almeida, I wasn’t convinced by the lust and desire Maggie is meant to feel and the starkness of Brick (Kingsley Ben-Adir)’s rejection of her.  Tall and thin and dressed for the most part in a silver tube dress, Daisy Edgar-Jones’ rampant feline characterisation only came alive for me in Marc Brenner’s wonderful production photographs and not on stage.  Not even crawling on the baby grand piano was convincing.