National Theatre At Home: stream A Streetcar Named Desire

Have you heard about National Theatre At Home? It's the brilliant new way of streaming the best live productions into your own front room – entirely for free.

Every Thursday at 7PM UK time, they will be releasing one NT Live title on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel that can be watched for free, on-demand for seven days only.

It's exactly what we all need during this time of stringent, nationwide lockdowns. This week, we're introducing A Streetcar Named Desire, including all the details of where you can stream it.

What is the story of A Streetcar Named Desire?

First unleashed on Broadway in 1947, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire proved to be a controversial sensation. This steamy story is set in the Deep South, and revolves around faded southern belle Blanche DuBlois, who is forced to travel to New Orleans and rely on her sister Stella's charity.

However, Stella has taken up with brutish boyfriend Stanley, and he clashes with the rarified though deeply troubled Blanche. Eventually, the humid New Orleans climate and the febrile atmosphere start to corrode Blanche's sanity, bringing ghosts of the past back into the present.

The play was groundbreaking for its relatively upfront depiction of sexuality and mental health. It was famously adapted by director Elia Kazan in 1951, with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando delivering celebrated performances as Blanche and Stanley.

You can now stream the 2014 National Theatre production, a partnership between the Young Vic and Joshua Andrews. The X Files and Bleak House star Gillian Anderson is memorably haunting as the tortured Blanche, with Hell or High Water's Ben Foster bringing muscular menace to Stanley. The Crown's Vanessa Kirby rounds out the cast as Stella in Benedict Andrews' acclaimed staging, the fast-selling production ever to come from the Young Vic.