THE fight for supremacy between fact and fiction may sometimes seem to be a conflict confined to our present, post-truth world.

But the students from the Experimental Theatre Club demonstrated the importance of distinguishing between the two is rather more long-running than that.

The group brought Tennessee Williams' 1958 play Suddenly Last Summer to the stage of the Oxford Playhouse with a passionate and probing performance.
Fiction and fact were portrayed respectively by Mary Higgins as Catharine and Derek Mitchell as Violet Venable.

It is doing none of the rest of the largely excellent case a disservice to say that Mitchell's performance was the standout.

Cross-dressing into the role of the ailing, ageing Mid-Western widow he was perfectly convincing as Mrs Venable fought to save the good name of her late son - a poet with whom she had an uncomfortably close relationship.

His portrayal of Mrs Venable struck the perfect balance between convincing herself - and her nurse - of her son's chaste integrity while leaving the audience sceptical.

Catherine on the other hand furiously and energetically fought to get the truth across – though it is only under hypnosis that she can do so.

Higgins gave her a boundless energy that makes her case all the more convincing as she tries to reveal what really led to Sebastian Venable's death.

Director Sammy Glover's careful mingling of past and present with snippets of earlier incidents – such as the moments right before Sebastian died – was a clever technique, and the staging of Mrs Venable's garden also worked well.

Not everything was perfect –Cassian Bilton's doctor was perhaps a little too clinical – but the performance, overall, hit all the right notes.

4/5