STAGE REVIEW: A Streetcar Named Desire - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Tuesday, April 10, to Saturday, April 14, 2018.

JUMPING half a century forwards doesn’t appear to have done this brash and bold new revival of what is widely regarded as a timeless classic any harm.

Tennessee Williams’ original book - which looks on both sides of truth and fantasy - was written and set in 1947 and became a big movie hit four years later.

The film was even selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’.

It certainly is a powerful, as well as thought-provoking tale in which we have a dysfunctional group of characters struggling with each other and life in general in a Deep South downtown, down-at-heel suburb of New Orleans.

Trainers and colourful shirts, and tightly fitting cut-off jeans for the women, provide a contemporary feel along with Madonna’s hit song, Material Girl, and other modern numbers, and in general Chelsea Walker’s take on events work to a degree.

Not exactly a favourite, there are one or two areas that do grate on the nerves, and also stretch the audience’s attention span.

Sitting through 90 minutes before a break was pushing it when there were several points when it could have been taken earlier.

Meanwhile the fake American 'southern drawl' didn’t always work, and although it is part of the action the boorish and loutish behaviour of several local residents raised the query of ’is this how Americans really behave?’

Possibly it’s how many of us might behave with the arrival of neurotic drama queen Blanche DuBois (Kelly Gough) - the sister who comes visiting with all that she has left in the world - a suitcase full of fine clothes and memories, particularly those relating to when she enjoyed and indulged a fine lifestyle.

Here she is an outsider desperate to find someone and somewhere to belong to. And it also provides a mystery for all why an ageing high school teacher from an old aristocratic family should up sticks from her comfortable Mississippi home.

Creditors and a past misdemeanour with a young pupil provide the answer.

Eventually arriving on a streetcar named Desire, she stays at sister Stella’s (Amber James) pokey apartment - just two rooms and a bathroom, where she lives with her violent husband, Stanley Kowalski (Patrick Knowles).

He was utterly convincing, so much so you felt disdain and a certain loathing of what he stood for.

Summer in New Orleans has tension and the temperature simmering close to boiling point and here Blanche is threatening Stanley’s way of life, not that it’s much of a life - although he would claim to be king, while Blanche continues to pretend what she clearly isn’t.

She struggles to hold it all together, particularly when her schoolteaching past begins to unravel her claims and her mind as the inner recesses begin to disintegrate. She may be clever, even seductive though not in her prime, and she is seeking magic in order to leave realism behind.

She’s not in the right place though on any level. Stanley can’t stand her, sister Stella struggles to see past the bedroom with her moody, abusive other half, and there’s precious little support elsewhere apart the impressively endearing Dexter Flanders’ likeable Mitch, whose intentions would appear honourable.

Basically it’s all a bit of pretence. Everyone wants what they can’t have but pretend the belief is theirs to hold.

What is happening to Stan, Stella and friends is the revelation that life becomes just an illusion and Walker illustrates the point with deftness when the set disappears before us - dismantled along with Blanche’s mind.

Gough’s interpretation of the troubled soul is spot on - a considerably extraordinary performance in a production that ratcheted up the tension superbly and comparably with the heat of the night.