Radcliffe wins rave reviews

A play about a stable hand who mutilates horses was never going to appeal to all, but “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe’s performance in Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” pleased London critics.

Some theater writers expressed reservations about Shaffer’s play, first staged in London in 1973, but almost all were impressed by the boy wizard’s breakout performance.

The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer said Radcliffe “brilliantly succeeds in throwing off the mantle of Harry Potter, announcing himself as a thrilling stage actor of unexpected range and depth.”

The play romanticized pain, said Michael Billington in the Guardian, but he wrote: “Forget all the prurient press speculation about Harry Potter’s private parts,” referring to a scene at the end where Radcliffe is nude. “The revelation in this revival is that Daniel Radcliffe really can act.”