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Equus, Theatre Royal, Brighton, Apr 21-26
Mention Equus and most people think of two things - horse-blinding and, most commonly, nudity.
When Peter Shaffer's controversial 1973 play was revived in the West End last year with Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role of troubled teenager
Alan Strang, the majority of coverage hung not on the play, but the fact Harry Potter would be "getting his kit off" in it.
It has been the same with the current touring production, which stars Alfie Allen - son of the infamous Keith and brother of pop starlet Lily - as Strang. "Alfie Allen Prepares For Naked Role", "Lily Allen's Brother Goes Naked Horse Stabbing", "Alfie Allen Reveals All In Equus" are just a handful of the breathless headlines.
Unsurprisingly, it's the last thing Alfie wants to talk about.
"It doesn't bother me at all," he says wearily, when asked the inevitable question.
Not even when, as recently, his family were in the audience?
"It's nothing they haven't seen before."
Equus represents the 21-year-old's first professional stage role and he is taking it very seriously indeed, which clearly doesn't allow for un-actorly worries about getting naked.
He has previously had small roles in several films, including the part of gardener's son Danny Hardman in the recent adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement, in which he starred opposite Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.
But, while that role was credited with helping him snag the lead in Equus, he has, up until now, been best known in relation to his famous family.
Radcliffe successfully made the transition from child star to "serious" actor when he appeared in the play.
Is Alfie, I suggest, also out to prove himself? After all, many people's only knowledge of him is as the pot-smoking layabout his sister affectionately portrayed in her hit song Alfie (from her debut album Alright, Still).
He claims that wasn't on his agenda.
"I wasn't really thinking about my reputation when I got the part," he says. "I was just wanted to make sure that I was doing it right. I was completely committed to the play from day one.
"If you think about these things, you get frightened, so I tried to dive in head first.
"When I look back on it I'll think, f***, what have I just done? But at the moment I just want to get on with it."
Equus looks at what happens when child psychiatrist Martin Dysart is presented with the most challenging case of his career - that of 17-year-old Strang.
Though outwardly a normal teenager, Strang's fervent obsession with horses and an encounter with a female stablehand have led him to carry out an appalling act.
Dysart knows he could "cure" Strang of his strange fascination, but is privately concerned about the validity of a solution that takes away someone's passion - however warped it may be.
In wrestling with the dilemma, he also begins to question his own life and wonders whether, without passion, there is a point to it.
Although he had read the play as part of his GCSE syllabus, Alfie hadn't seen it performed before - he claims he couldn't get tickets when it was in the West End - and thinks this was useful.
"They wanted it to be a completely different production from the West End one and because I'd never seen it, I had no preconceptions of how I should play it," he says.
"I knew I needed to play a 17-year-old, but Alan is actually more like a little kid instead. He doesn't have that much life experience. He has no friends and he has been cocooned in his own world.
"I knew I needed to play him young, but he has
all these very complex emotions in his head at the same time."
He was helped by Simon Callow, who plays Dysart.
"I was a little bit scared at first and worried about what he was going to be like," Alfie says of his formidable co-star. "But we did some publicity shots together and he was really, really lovely. He's been very helpful in rehearsals."
The veteran actor, director and biographer
(Callow published a biography of Orson Welles
last year, which he will be reading from at Hove's Old Market on Friday, April 25) cheerfully admits he knew nothing about Alfie, other than that he was Keith's son.
Callow had met Keith some 30 years previously when he was stage manager of London's Institute of Contemporary Art.
"I had never heard of Alfie Allen and, to be absolutely candid, I'd never heard of Lily Allen either," he says, his plummy tones a stark contrast to Alfie's East End twang. "I knew he'd never acted on stage before and I was very, very nervous about that - but absolutely without reason. He's totally competent, extremely disciplined and very skilful."
Callow knows Equus well. As a friend of John Dexter, who directed the original 1973 production, he had been in the audience at the first preview, which starred Peter Firth as Strang and Alec McCowen as Dysart.
"I was completely knocked sideways by it," he says. "I had no idea what it would be about - nobody did really - and I was astonished."
The play has strong sexual and religious themes. It explores how Strang has built his own theology around horses, and reveals the overlap between his physical attraction to them and his normal sexual awakening with the stablehand. It also examines the difficulties faced by people like Dysart, who inhabit a world without passion.
"Dysart feels that he himself has never really fully lived, because he hasn't been able to worship anything," Callow explains. "He's had no passion for anything in his life and is actually envious of the boy in a sense.
"In unravelling the reasons Strang did what he did, Peter hit on a whole lot of matters which are of great concern to all of us in the modern world - essentially the question of how you live in a world without god.
"What do you do? What's the point of reference anymore?"
Callow speaks glowingly of McCowen's original interpretation of Dysart.
"He set a wonderful example of how to do the play, which is to find the passionate urgency of it," he says. "It has to be urgent. It has to proceed with great electrical energy and emotional intensity, and Alex did that so brilliantly. But we're very different sorts of actors."
Callow admits he has never performed the role - or, indeed, any of his many past roles - to his total personal satisfaction.
"I've done 75 performances as Dysart now, and it's constantly developing," he says. "No two nights are the same, ever. But I don't change them in order to change them - I do it in the hope of getting closer to what it really should be."
So he doesn't think he'll ever "nail" Dysart, then?
"If I do, then I'll be really scared, because the idea of having to reproduce it in that way every night would be ghastly to me."
And less engaging for him, I suggest.
"It's hard to think of this play ever getting boring because it's just so difficult," Callow says. "It's a torrent of words and ideas. It's very complex. Mentally you have to be very, very alert."
Now three-quarters of the way through the tour, Callow is enjoying the variety of responses Equus provokes around the country.
"In Belfast the religious aspect of the play really came across very hard," he says. "In other places, like Glasgow, there are witty audiences that pick up on all the humour."
And what does he predict for Brighton? Callow, of course has a long professional and personal attachment to the city - he is patron of the Theatre Royal and had once planned to buy a house here.
He is also never short of an answer.
"Brighton audiences will react with absolutely unanimous delight," he replies without a moment's hesitation.
Times vary, tickets from £17-£27. Call 0870 0606650
10:18am Friday 18th April 2008
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