Sweet Bird Of Youth (or, Don't castrate me, we're in Hollywoodland)

You've got to hand it to him - Tennessee Williams lurved melodrama. With a passion.

You know the drill. Steamy settings, sublime overacting, posturing, drugs and illicit sex.

Sweet Bird Of Youth is like the camp version of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, which is a favourite here at NNM, as you can probably tell. (As if it needed to be any more camp!) Paul Newman spends half his time bare chested and Geraldine Page spends so much time flicking her hair out of her face, grunting and gesticulating wickedly that she could open an over-acting school to rival that of the great Piper Laurie.

Like most of Williams' plays, all the good, juicy bits have been excised from the film version. It gets a happy ending for goodness' sake. I am sure it was still rather shocking in its day but I would still have liked to see Newman castrated with a blowtorch. Call me a literary puritan.

If it is your bag, check it out. Very OTT but, like I said, you know what you're getting into.