Equus (play) Equus (play) Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses. Shaffer was inspired to write "Equus" when he heard of a crime involving a 17-year-old who blinded six horses in a small town near Suffolk. He set out to construct a fictional account of what might have caused the incident, without knowing any of the details of the crime. The play's action is something of a detective story, involving the attempts of the child psychiatrist Dr. Martin
Peter Firth Alan Strang. His first major role as an adult was the title part in a BBC Television "Play of the Month" adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1976). The script was based on a stage adaptation by John Osborne, and also starred Jeremy Brett and John Gielgud. That same year saw the release of the World War I film "Aces High" which featured Firth as the inexperienced RFC pilot Lt. Stephen Croft. Firth played the lead role in the film adaptation of Henry Fielding's "Joseph Andrews" (1977). That same year he starred with Richard Burton in