Sweet Bird of Youth, Old Vic, review Sweet Bird of Youth also sees the welcome return of Kim Cattrall to the stage, still fondly and indeed lubriciously remembered for the Sex And The City TV series. She is incendiary form here as a raddled but still sexy movie actress on the run from what she believes to be a flop of a comeback movie. She finds sexual consolation in the arms of a gigalo who is long past the first flush of youth and desperately seeking to redeem his wasted life by getting a career in films and marrying his childhood sweetheart. In the course of the play fond dreams are cruelly shattered. As a reformed drunk I am something of an expert on hangovers and Cattrall who I am sure is admirably abstemious in her private life brilliantly captures the hell of an alcoholic awakening that begins the play. She doesn't know where she is, she can't remember her companion and isn't even certain whether she usually wears glasses or not. Only pills and vodka can take the edge off her paranoia. Yet wonderfully even at her lowest ebb Catrall also suggests the grandiosity of a Hollywood star and her put downs of her devious lover are superbly assured and witty. There is equally fine work from the hunky American work Seth Numrich as a super-annuated toyboy, deviously plotting to make use of Cattrall while actually heading towards disaster as he belatedly learns what happened to the one girl he ever loved. There is cracking support too with an especially good turn from Owen Roe as a monstrously bigoted and corrupt politician and a deeply poignant performance from Louise Dillon as his wretched daughter, Heavenly. Sweet Bird of Youth certainly isn't a play for the feint-hearted but boy does it deliver the theatrical goods. Until Aug 31. 0844 871 7628; oldvictheatre.com/sweet-bird-of-youth