The truth hurts.
On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather at their cotton plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real – and which will win out?
Sienna Miller stars as Maggie alongside Jack O’Connell as Brick and Colm Meaney as Big Daddy. A return to the stage for director Benedict Andrews following his smash hit production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams’ searing, poetic story of a family’s fight for survival is a modern masterpiece.
Every family has their issues, and this is all too true for the Pollitt family. Wealth cannot stop the ravages of ill health, and as Big Daddy succumbs to illness, he must decide which of his sons will inherit the family estate. As the family gathers to celebrate the patriarch’s birthday, a web of lies and family secrets starts to spiral out of control. Big Daddy’s favoured son, Brick, is drinking himself into oblivion under the strains of his overbearing wife Maggie, and on this steamy night in Mississippi, the combination of the scorching heat, the flowing booze and longstanding mendacity threaten to boil over. When the truth has become this hazy, sometimes the only way through it is to ride out the storm – even on an occasion such as this.
Age recommendation: 15+
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The Apollo Theatre is situated on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End of London, close to Piccadilly Circus tube station.