TURNING up the heat with its next production is the St Albans-based Company of Ten which will perform Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer in the Abbey Theatre Studio.

Rarely performed but an intense drama, the play prompted director Brian Stewart to comment: “Working with a play that focuses, metaphorically speaking, on the moment a match has been struck but before the saltpetre has ignited is exciting indeed. And with Suddenly Last Summer Williams certainly has turned up the heat.”

It features an aged matriarchal figure with her fist on the money, surrounded by impoverished relatives, a young woman of supposed good breeding and a story that threatens to blow reputations sky high.

Brian added that it had, “fabulously drawn characters, explosive dialogue, relationships blasting out the rivets as they are torn apart and a dénouement as shocking as we are led to expect by all that goes before.”

Suddenly Last Summer is being performed at 8pm from next Thursday, June 6, to Saturday, June 8, and from June 12 to 15 with a Sunday matinee at 2.30pm on June 9.

Tickets are available from www.abbeytheatre.org.uk or call the box office on 01727 857861.