THE Press night audience for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof got a little more drama than expected on Thursday last, as Daragh O’Malley (Big Daddy) was taken ill late in the afternoon and was replaced by director, James Dacre, who heroically read the part.

Mike Britton’s totally enclosing white shuttered set evokes the heat of the deep south yet has the physical template of a bird-cage, a motif that Tennessee Williams used across his writing career to imprison and probe his characters in their dysfunctional lives.

The cat in the title refers to Maggie who attempts to talk her husband back into the marital bed, a magnificently annoying Mariah Gale who spoke almost every word in the first 15 minutes of the play, an amazing achievement, and enough to incite me to want to shout, "For goodness sake, shut up".

Her alcoholic ex-footballer husband, Brick, has almost switched her off as he constantly searches for the off button in his head, a sort of click he can only find after drinking enough booze. Charles Aitken’s Brick wears the jagged edges of his anger with a seething quietness, as he hobbles, most convincingly, on a broken leg. Aitken’s performance is a master class, his questionable sexuality and the enigmatic power of his emotional stress is palpable.

Brilliantly believable performance from Victoria Elliott, proving she can step out of the Geordie accent straight into the shoes of Mae, a munchkin momma from Memphis. Fab stuff too from the team of local children playing her kids at the birthday party.

The only thing missing for me was the heat, the lethargic sweat of the deep south, but well done to James Dacre for both reading and directing and get well soon Daragh, we missed you.

  • Runs until September 27. Box Office: 0191-230-5151 or northernstage.co.uk