MOST people, I suspect, know this steamy Tennessee Williams drama through images from the film – of Elizabeth Taylor in a silky slip looking longingly at Paul Newman, who’s more interested in the drink in his hand.

The picture neatly sums up the play – sexually unsatisfied wife, husband with a drink problem – although, of course, there’s a lot more to it.

Francis O’Connor’s magnificent setting fills the large Quarry stage with a plush Southern mansion, water lapping at the walls and greenery hanging from the ceiling. We’re in a married couple’s bedroom where Zoe Boyle’s on-heat Maggie prowls and purrs in an attempt to distract Jamie Parker’s athletic-looking Brick from the pleasures of the bottle and lure him into bed.

There’s much talk of Skipper, the friend for whom Brick seems to have more feelings than Maggie.

Then there’s the family, with Richard Cordery’s towering Big Daddy, still in command despite an illness that provides the spark for bickering at a birthday gathering.

Director Sarah Esdaile orchestrates this operatic high drama with a sure hand, with a finely detailed production and fine acting in three hours of superb drama.

Boyle’s hot-blooded Maggie is sexy, sultry, seductive and, boy, can she talk in the first act. Parker’s Brick may be a man of few words, but he makes every one count, and his slide into an alcoholic stupor is convincingly done.

Until Saturday. Box office 0113-213-7700 and at wyp.org.uk