Cat was a smash hit when first performed on Broadway in 1955 and as Maggie, Rose (above) has to follow in the smoldering paw prints of Barbara Bel Geddes, the original Cat, and fill the negligee flaunted by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1958 movie version.

The New York Times was turned on: "Though Ms Rose wears a slinky slip as

beguilingly as Ms Taylor did, it's her take-charge energy and unembarrassed directness that makes this Maggie such a stimulating presence."

But the Hollywood Reporter was turned off: "In the first scene Rose, wearing Maggie's trademark slip, writhes and poses suggestively with all the subtlety of a porn star." Cat had become a "raucous family sitcom".

Either way, the publicity stills of Rose's bronze-brown legs propped up against the post of a four-poster bed are box office Viagra. But in this production