Like Michael Rimmer and Captain Invincible, I caught the movie of Equus on late night TV once years ago. Unlike those overlooked gems, it is a risible self-important piece of tat and I forbid you to see it.
F'rinstance, Lord Richard of Burton (as Martin Dysart) rolleth his eyes and intoneth:
The normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. There's also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills, like a god. It is the ordinary made beautiful, it is also the average made lethal. Normal is the indispensable murderous god of health and I am his priest.
Oh dear (though it might be pretty cool to mishear it as "Norman is the indispensable murderous god of health and I am his priest").
Actually, I was first exposed to the work of Peter Shaffer at a tender age. In an episode I remember clearly but can scarcely credit, a group of us primary school children were taken to the cinema to see 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun' as a treat on a classmate's birthday.
It is certainly a far cry from the Wacky Warehouse where my six year old is going to a party after school today. I can still bring the scene where Christopher Plummer (as Atahualpa) is garrotted to my mind's eye and shudder at it again, though I must have been seven or eight at the time.
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