Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: from 1958 to 2012 – in pictures

Kim Stanley and Paul Massay as Maggie and Brick in the first British production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958. Almost 30 years later, Stanley received an Emmy for playing Big Mama in a TV adaptation of the play
Photograph: Associated Newspapers/Rex Features

Another still from the British production. Because the Lord Chamberlain would not grant the play a licence to be performed, due to its homosexual themes, theatregoers had to pay to join a private members' club in order to see it at the Comedy theatre Photograph: Associated Newspapers / Rex Features

The same year, a filmed version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was released, starring Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. It received six Oscar nominations but tones the play down considerably. Williams once implored a queue of cinemagoers not to watch it Photograph: SNAP / Rex Features

The National theatre's 1988 production, starring Lindsay Duncan and Ian Charleson, was the first that did the play justice Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Features

'Everything one hoped for was there,' writes Michael Billington, the Guardian's theatre critic. 'Social satire, comedy, and the defiance of Duncan's Maggie as she announced her pregnancy with tilted chin as if challenging anyone to dispute it'
Photograph: Mike Hollist/Daily Mail/Rex Features

In 2001, Anthony Page staged the play at the Lyric theatre in London with three American actors in the lead roles: Brendan Fraser as Brick, Frances O'Connor as Maggie and Ned Beatty as Big Daddy Photograph: Pete Jones/ArenaPAL

In 2009, a production with a distinguished, all-black cast transferred from Broadway to the West End, starring Adrian Lester (left) as Brick and James Earl Jones as Big Daddy Photograph: Geraint Lewis/Rex Features

'Sanaa Lathan's Maggie was so sizzlingly sensual she almost burnt a hole in the satin bedclothes', notes Billington Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Features

Jamie Parker in rehearsal for the role of Brick in the West Yorkshire Playhouse production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, directed by Sarah Esdaile Photograph: Keith Pattison/PR

The Leeds production, which also stars Zoe Boyle as Maggie, will give audiences a chance to reassess Williams's complex and symphonic play Photograph: Keith Pattison/PR