FOR some unknown reason, The Lyric Hammersmith ’ s touring company, Secret Theatre, decided to stage Streetcar not in the naturalistic sweaty southern drawl of the Americas but in English, totally disregarding the poetic rhythms of its author, Tennessee Williams.

It makes the play feel like it’s in a different language especially when you add in the strange almost South African accent from Estonian Sergo Vares, a belligerent Stanley, who did put up the best performance of the night for me.

The story centres around Blanche DuBois, an attractive though fading Southern belle whose pretensions of virtue thinly mask her alcoholism and her annoying delusions of grandeur.

Nadia Albina worked very hard to portray Blanche as a total screaming nutcase, but the nymphomaniac side of her character was so underplayed it was difficult to feel any sexual tension on stage.

I was supposed to feel sorry for her by the end of the play, but actually I was thankful when they carted her off to hospital.

The set is a simple affair of three white screens, a moveable A-frame ladder, which cleverly signified the tenements, and a bathroom on wheels.

The acting was casual, a little difficult to hear at times and the dialogue sometimes at odds with the action.

There also seemed to be a minor obsession with water melons, which Stanley spent almost ten minutes feverishly cutting up before proceeding to throw about the stage; this was to signify a game of poker and was aggravatingly repeated in the second half.

“I don’t want realism, I want magic.” says Blanche at one point. Unfortunately this production was neither.

  • Runs until June 14. Box Office 01912 305151 or northernstage.co.uk