SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH

OSCAR-WINNING actress Marcia Gay Harden (pictured) pops up in Tennessee Williams’s bittersweet 1959 play about a washed-out Hollywood movie legend escaping to Mexico with a wastrel gigolo. One of Williams’s most personal and sardonic works, it is a lament for lost youth and ambition. Brian J. Smith co-stars as the gigolo with his own agenda. opens tonight at the Festival theatre, Chichester (01243 781312, cft.org.uk).