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Normal People’s Paul Mescal, just nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for his role in the film Aftersun, Olivier Award Winning Patsy Ferran, We are Lady Parts’ Anjana Vasan and Our Girl’s Dawn Walcott will all reprise their roles in the West End transfer

‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

Paul Mescal, just nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for his leading role in the film Aftersun, and best known for his BAFTA winning role in Normal People, Olivier Award winner Patsy Ferran (Summer & Smoke), Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts) and Dwane Walcott (One Night in Miami, Our Girl) will continue in the roles of Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Harold ‘Mitch’ Mitchell respectively, in the transfer of the Almeida Theatre’s critically acclaimed, hot ticket & sell-out production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall (Cabaret, Summer & Smoke), the production will run for a strictly limited 6-week run, at the Phoenix Theatre, from 20 March to 29 April 2023.

★★★★★

The Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The i

“How pretty the sky is! I ought to go there on a rocket that never comes down.”

On a street in New Orleans, in the blistering summer heat, a sister spirals.

When Blanche unexpectedly visits her estranged sister Stella, she brings with her a past that will threaten their future. As Stella’s husband Stanley stalks closer to the truth, Blanche’s fragile world begins to fracture. Reality and illusion collide and a violent conflict changes their lives forever.

Almeida Associate Director Rebecca Frecknall’s “heart-stopping” (The Telegraph)revival of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece transfers to the West End for a limited six week run. 

Patsy Ferran (“astonishingly good” Time Out) returns as Blanche DuBois, with Paul Mescal (“tremendous” The Times)as Stanley, and Anjana Vasan (“outstanding” New York Times) as Stella in this “mesmerising” (The i) production.

Paul Mescal said “I’m incredibly excited that Streetcar is being transferred to the West End with this formidable cast and creative team, led by the exceptionally talented Rebecca Frecknall. It’s my favourite play and it’s wonderful to be able to share it with a wider audience”.

This is the first production Rebecca has directed following the multi-award-winning production of Cabaret, for which she won the Olivier Award and Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Director (the production won seven Olivier Awards in total).

Rebecca Frecknall, Director, said “I’m thrilled we will have the opportunity to share this production with a wider audience. It’s a testament to this fantastic company and incredible play. It’s been moving to see how audiences have responded to our work and I’m excited to see how the piece will evolve in the West End.”

A Streetcar Named Desire’s creative team is as follows: Director: Rebecca Frecknall; Set Designer: Madeleine Girling; Costume Designer: Merle Hensel; Lighting Designer: Lee Curran; Sound Designer: Peter Rice: Composer: Angus MacRae and Casting Director: Julia Horan CDG.

A Streetcar Named Desire is produced by Ambassador Theatre Group Productions the Almeida Theatre, Wessex Grove and Gavin Kalin productions.

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A Streetcar Named Desire is everything you want Theatre to be

Mescal, Credit…Marc Brenner


First things first, Paul Mescal is tremendous. He makes bully Stanley Kowalski terrifying yet sensitive, while Anjana Vasan as his wife Stella is magnificent – – blind to his brutality.

Kowalski is the epitome of toxic masculinity, a character devoid of empathy and kindness.

Alas, blue-collar Stanley sees that the unexpected sister-in-law Blanche DuBois is not what she appears to be, and sets out to destroy her. Patsy Ferran excels as the disintegrating dame in director Rebecca Frecknall’s grand production of the 1947 Tennessee Williams play. 

Ferran who stepped in to play Blanche last month when Lydia Wilson withdrew due to an injury, is completely mesmerising.

Madeleine Girling’s empty raised platform, under Lee Curran’s lighting, makes the in-the-round battle for territory fully absorbing. Frecknall honours Williams in not making it easy to take sides.

This seriously unsettling production with few props barrels along: the furious jazz drum score (designed by Peter Rice) sometimes becomes intrusive and occasionally makes the dialogue hard to hear.  

But on the whole the nerve jangling a capella singing, percussion and symphonic swells work to the play’s advantage: they punctuate Stanley’s rancour and Blanches downward spiral. 

As Blanche loses first her dignity and then her mind, an audience’s emotions is left in shreds. I wept as Blanche walked from the auditorium. 

This multi-faceted show lasts around three hours, but there isn’t a moment when the drink-fuelled tension drops or focus of the ensemble lapses.

Pasty Ferran as Blanche

The Almeida’s A Streetcar Named Desire – the play’s fifth major UK revival in the last 20 years – is everything you want theatre to be: vital, challenging, intellectually alive, visually stunning, emotionally affecting.

Yet my memories of this spiky production will be of lean, sexy and pitch perfect Mescal who roars like a goaded boar – “I’m king around here.” He mimicks a tiger, in the infamous show-down scene

It’s a savage tour de force not only from Mescal and Ferran but everyone involved, and awards will follow: a west end transfer has been announced. 

So if you haven’t got a ticket, try relying on the kindness of strangers.

A Streetcar Named Desire runs at the Almeida, London, until 4 February.

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