STAGE CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Ondemand.ballet.org.uk

Sienna Miller and Jack O’connell star in Tennessee Williams’ seething, booze-soaked masterpiece about a Deep South family in crisis.

The Young Vic 2017 production divided opinion by updating from a Mississippi plantation to gleaming modernity and laying bare more than the inner demons of central couple Brick and Maggie, with O’connell in particular frequently naked.

Act One is dominated by Maggie relentlessly monologuing as she desperately tries to regain her unresponsive alcoholic husband’s interest, though he is tortured by repressed love for dead friend Skipper.

Miller attacks the role with gusto and physicality and O’connell impresses when Brick’s emotions finally explode in the Act Two scenes with Colm Meaney’s Big Daddy. Lisa Palfrey scenesteals as Big Mama, tremulously chasing family harmony with her mobile shoved down her cleavage, as more secrets and lies erupt at the climactic party.

It’s all bursting with committed performances but the contemporary setting dilutes the drama of homosexual shame and too many drifting Southern accents rob the sublime language of some of the poetry and bite.

For a play so obsessed with lies, it doesn’t quite ring true.

LE CORSAIRE ★★★★★

In a shamelessly overblown ballet where no male lead can make an entrance without a flying jump, three spins and a scissor kick, Vadim Muntagirov is majestic as corsair Conrad. He’s matched by Alina Cojocaru’s power and control in every exquisite leap and pirouette as his beloved Medora, a sexy temptress captured by slavers.

The Act Two treasure cave rescue scene is stuffed with jaw-dropping bravura brilliance from the entire cast but Junor Souza (right) shines as the slave Ali, unleashing vertiginous jumps, dizzying spins and barrel rolls. Ridiculous, riotous and ravishing, this pirate romp is a stuffed parrot short of perfection.