Review Roundup: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF Starring Sienna Miller and Jack O'Connell- Updated!

The adult cast for the Young Vic's West End production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Apollo Theatre comprises Sienna Miller (Maggie), Jack O'Connell(Brick), Colm Meaney (Big Daddy), Lisa Palfrey (Big Mama), Hayley Squires(Mae), Brian Gleeson(Gooper), Richard Hansel (Doctor) and Michael J Shannon(Reverend). Directed by Benedict Andrews this twelve-week limited run, with press night on 24 July, has its final performance on 7 October 2017. Set designs are by Magda Willi with costume designs by Alice Babidge, lighting by Jon Clark and sound design by Gareth Fry. Music is by award-winning composer and musician Jed Kurzel.

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?

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Ben Brantley, New York Times: Directed by Benedict Andrews, this thrilling revival of Tennessee Williams's 1955 Pulitzer Prize winner burns bright enough to scorch but also to illuminate. Starring a perfectly paired Jack O'Connell and Sienna Miller, this Young Vic production brings combustible conviction to a smoldering classic that has only rarely ignited in performance in recent years.

Ann Treneman, The Times: This Tennessee Williams play needs not just to feel as hot as the American South on a summer's day, it needs to sizzle. Sienna Miller as Maggie provides exactly that in the first half, bursting into the bedroom she shares with her husband, Brick, who is in the shower, naked except for his glass of whiskey. "Brick," she purrs, "I'm a cat."

Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard: Slinky, seductive in black slip and killer stilettos and coiled with nervous energy, Maggie prowls around the bedroom, talking almost uninterrupted for the entire first act about her loveless, and now sex-less, marriage. It's a big ask of any performer and Miller turns in a faultless performance.

Natasha Tripney, The Stage: Sienna Miller - who made her West End debut in David Lan's production of As You Like It back in 2005 - conveys something of Maggie's desperation but it's a strained performance and there are times when her accent makes it sound like she's been binge-watching Justified. O'Connell is suitably muscular and brusque as Brick, hobbled by an ankle injury, sinking drink after drink in search of the 'click' that makes his existence bearable.

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail: Of the supporting cast, several seem distinctly un-American. Lisa Palfrey's Big Mama, hiding her mobile in her deep cleavage, is a successful creation, as is Hayley Squires's Mae, but a visiting clergyman (Michael J. Shannon) resembles a West Country solicitor and Colm Meaney, though a gifted performer, is in no way a Mississippi plantation owner.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: There are plenty of different ways to skin Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams' 1955 masterpiece of marital, familial and sexual dysfunction down in Mississippi but I've never seen one that goes at it with such kit-off abandon.

Holly Williams, WhatsOnStage: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a long wordy play of misfiring discussions about tortured sexual impulses and power struggles over family inheritance. To work, it needs electricity, a shock of brutal humour; this too often drags. Sienna Miller's accent may swoop, but the entire first half feels one-note, her part rattled through. She skates over the lines, rather than pouncing on meaning, while Jack O'Connell gives her nothing to work with. Sure, Brick is taciturn, depressed, distant... but this is just very dry.