Theatre review: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Rebecca Frecknall returns to the major Tennessee Williams plays at the Almeida and, with The Glass Menagerie having been done to death in recent years, the next obvious candidate would be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which hasn't had a major London production since the genitals-forward one of 2017. Still, that one having such a distinctive, er, visual identity means Frecknall still has to put a strong stamp on her version to make it stand out, and unsurprisingly she does. A wealthy, plantation-owning Southern family get together to celebrate the 65th birthday of Big Daddy (Lennie James,) who's recently got the all-clear from cancer. Except he hasn't: In a play about secrets, the one most of the family share is that the doctor's letter actually revealed his condition was inoperable, terminal, and about to enter its final stages. But in what is being considered a kindness, he and Big Mama (Clare Burt) are being kept in the dark.

Theatre review: Summer and Smoke

I’ve only seen one show directed by Rebecca Frecknall before, a production of the obscure Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke at Southwark Playhouse in 2012. Well either Frecknall herself or Rupert Goold must have thought she had unfinished business with it, as she now makes her Almeida debut with… a production of the obscure Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke. In a small Mississippi town early in the 20th century, Alma Winemiller (Future Dame Patsy Ferran) is the local minister’s daughter, timid, bookish and prone to panic attacks, with a slightly affected accent – which she puts down to her father having spent time in England, but most of the town sees as further evidence that she’s pretentious. She’s been quietly besotted with her neighbour, the doctor’s son John Buchanan (Matthew Needham) since high school and, after some time away studying medicine, John has returned for the summer.