Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre
Peter Shaffer’s play about a psychiatrist trying to understand why a teenage boy has blinded six horses is back. The critics liked the way Lindsay Posner‘s production used unadorned, bare chested actors as the horses (no hooves or horses’ heads as has been traditional). This brought out the homo-erotic side of the play. Several reviews emphasised that the methods used by psychiatrist Martin Dysart have long been abandoned, but all agreed it holds up as a drama. Toby Stephens‘ portrait of Dysart received muted praise; Noah Valentine got top marks for his vulnerable patient Alan Strang.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑
The Standard‘s Nick Curtis gave us the lowdown in his first paragraph: ‘This classy revival of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play about a boy undergoing analysis after blinding six horses reveals its hybrid nature. Equus is an earnest exploration of belief, a homo-erotic study of repressed sexuality and an occasionally absurd melodrama. Lindsay Posner’s production, which marks Shaffer’s centenary, showcases a performance of glittering vulnerability from emerging talent Noah Valentine as the boy, Alan Strang, while Toby Stephens flirts with hysteria as the shrink, Martin Dysart. ‘
Kate Wyver for The Guardian got quite excited: ‘Lindsay Posner revives Equus with precision, as absolute power shifts, homoerotic desire grows and the muscular allure of a stallion becomes irresistible.’
The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish found: ‘It’s wonderful to see an actor as young and vulnerable as Valentine capitalise on his freshness while commanding the stage. He is sulky, aggressive, inward, and awkward with his interlocutors; then, in the flashbacks that conjure his assignations with his stablemates, he peels that away, innocent in his nakedness and joyous as he rides, with an orgasmic release, on the shoulders of his beloved.’
Holly O’Mahony for The Stage commented: ‘Lindsay Posner’s production is a thing of beauty; powerful, carnal, elegant and precise.’ Having echoed Dominic Cavendish’s praise of Valentine, she noted: ‘Toby Stephens is riveting as Martin Dysart, the psychiatrist treating Alan and whose fascination with the boy’s crime extends beyond the professional. He’s every bit a man internally at war with his own reined-in emotions, and concerned about quashing those of his patient.’
Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski had this to say about the two stars: ‘Stephens’ Dysart is a vulnerable, nervy man whose cultivated professional veneer conceals doubts from the off … Stephens gives him a sense of fallibility from the off as he cringes from a furious Alan during a first encounter. And Noah Valentine is a wonderful Alan, boyishly vulnerable but with an elemental otherness that’s often menacing in the extreme but is also pure, free, his own.’
WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton talked about the horses: ‘The choreography by James Cousins magnificently embodies the horses in the form of six dancers, bodies smeared with black, who sit at the back of Paul Farnsworth’s stark arena of a set, watchful and still. When called into action, their bodies uncoil into the shapes of the animals, shoulders flexing, heads nuzzling and nudging, arms and legs shaped into an uncanny and communicative suggestion of movement. Sometimes they come together to convey the size and heft of the horses Alan will ride. This approach, so different from the masked stylisation of the original production, emphasises the erotic as well as the religious obsessions that have transformed horses into an object of worship.’
BroadwayWorld‘s Aliyah Al-Hassan recorded: ‘The Menier is a brilliant venue for the production, small enough to convey the intense claustophobia in the play, but also to appreciate the strength of the actors at such intimate quarters. It feels almost voyeuristic, peering into the darkness of Paul Farnsworth’s stark set. Posner approaches the famous nude scenes with delicacy and thoughtful care, but leans into the inherent unease in the play. It is not an easy watch, but a hugely moving and compelling one.
The Independent‘s Alice Saville felt: ‘it’s apt that Lindsey Posner’s striking staging feels as intimate as trespassing into a teenager’s bedroom. The lights are dim, and bare-chested dancers are the only furniture. Soon, the Menier’s small stage seems to swell, its walls struggling to contain the vastness of this young man’s terrifying internal world.’
Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre told us he had seen every production of Equus in New York and London, so it was praise indeed when he wrote: ‘Lindsay Posner’s deeply impassioned production … honours the legacy of a British playwright unrivalled in the sheer theatricality of his imagination.’ He noted: ‘Dispensing here with the metal hooves and headgear of the Napier original, Posner’s production foregrounds six performers of astonishing athleticism…the animals move with unerringly angular grace, the first act culminating in a naked Alan’s victorious ride atop Nugget in a genuine coup de théâtre that sends one in a state of astonishment into the interval.’ He concluded: ‘What matters in Equus is the fearless study in extremities that Dysart tells us early on “is the point”: this production, as it must be, is a wild ride.’
3 stars ⭑⭑⭑
Although he acknowledged the quality of the production, The Times’ Clive Davis wasn’t won over by the play: ‘in the overwrought conversations, the deck is fatally loaded. Dysart, forever lamenting his loveless marriage, talks of how the boy has “known a passion”. Strang’s uncomprehending parents, forcefully played by Emma Cunniffe and Colin Mace, are stock lower-middle class characters from a 1950s Rank potboiler.’
Critics’ average rating 3.9⭑
Equus can be seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre until 4 July 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre
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