If Daniel Radcliffe had to make a break with his bright-eyed young innocent "Harry Potter" to show that times, they are a changin', it would be hard to think of a more dramatic or more challenging way to do it, writes Carole Woddis.

In Peter Shaffer's Equus, he plays Alan Strang, a disturbed 17-year-old who, one terrible night, blinds six horses.

Originally staged in 1973 by John Dexter for the Royal National theatre at the Old Vic, it was always a questionable, if theatrically powerful, psychological why-done-it and confrontation between a psychiatrist whose encounter with Strang forces him to confront his own emotional atrophy.

The cards are heavily stacked - and one might suspect, at this distance, heavily influenced by the iconoclastic teacher R D Laing who rebelled against the idea of "normal" behaviour.

In Thea Sharrock's production, Richard Griffiths as Dysart lets us vividly see the self-loathing of a high-supposed healing priest, who could take away pain but will leave an individual bereft of that one ingredient that can make life meaningful and that he lacks: passion.

Shaffer's climax takes a while to wind-up and the building tension inevitably is not just to do with Dysart leading Strang to act out the blinding, but also to do with Radcliffe getting his kit off.

As the well-primed publicity shots have shown us, Radcliffe is maturing fast and boasts a fine torso. While his nude scene with Joanna Christie's willing stable girl Jill is sensitively handled, Radcliffe's emotional range still remains all too well packaged.

Equus stands the test of time because adolescent violence is so current.

Original designer John Napier adds his usual grandeur to proceedings with an abstract semi-circle and arches and once again repeats those with wonderful mesh horse-heads worn by actors.

Corn, but powerful corn. And that Radcliffe chest is a feast for anybody's eyes.