‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Young Vic, London

Radical director Benedict Andrews was last at the Young Vic in 2012 with a raw, thrilling take on Three Sisters that had Chekhov’s characters brandishing expletives, blasting out Nirvana and finishing up marooned on a mound of earth.

Now he tackles Tennessee Williams’ great classic, setting it not in the exotic, jazz-soaked 1940s New Orleans with which we are familiar, but a more contemporary counterpart. The intention is to free the play from the nostalgic haze that sometimes descends on it and release its powerful, troubling blend of realism and metaphor. Gillian Anderson stars as the mentally unravelling Blanche DuBois, with Vanessa Kirby as Stella, her sister, and Ben Foster as Stanley, the brother-in-law who both attracts and appals Blanche. Sparks should fly.

youngvic.org, 020 7922 2922, Monday to September 19