First things first: this excellent production of Peter Shaffer’s well-known play about a boy who has blinded six horses will be at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, on June 8 and 9 and should on no account be missed.

The staying power of this quintessentially 1970s piece was demonstrated five years ago in the West End revival, starring Daniel Radcliffe as the tortured boy. London Classic Theatre’s compelling new production, under director Michael Cabot, makes use of the updated script devised at that time.

“Yak, yak and more bloody yak” was my verdict when I last saw the play as originally written. That I did not feel the same watching this week in Cheltenham suggests that some longueurs have been eliminated.

One odd change I noted was the substitution of Milky Bars for Double Mint chewing gum in the advertising jingles recited by horse-blinding patient Alan Strang (Matthew Pattimore) as his means of dodging questions from Martin Dysart (Malcolm James), the psychiatrist appointed to try to cure him. Is the gum unfamiliar to modern audiences?

While there are necessarily nods in the direction of John Dexter’s original seventies’ staging for the National Theatre — in the matter of the famous horses’ heads for instance — the production gets something of a timeless classical feel through the designs of Kerry Bradley.

Pattimore’s portrait of Strang — a victim of so much sexual, religious and political bigotry — could hardly be bettered in the gripping encounters with James’s world-weary shrink.

Joanna Waters as the lad’s snooty mum and Steve Dineen as his no-nonsense socialist dad also shine. There is a fine turn, too, from Helen Phillips as the stable girl whose sexual precosity precipitates Alan’s dreadful deed.

The play is at Cheltenham until Saturday (01242 572573). For Chipping Norton tickets call 01608 642350.