Short and bitter, David Storey’s Early Days, first seen at he Cottesloe in the spring, has moved to the Comedy, giving West End audiences the chance of seeing Ralph Richardson in one of his most striking portrayals. It is strange to reflect that Richardson’s career has taken a definite shape, leading him from his own early days, when he played those straightforward, solid young men, through a series of the great classical character roles, to his present status as the unsurpassed delineator of dangerous old age. At this time he is more watchable and listenable than at any period in his past, and this brief play, in which he is an ex-cabinet minister who has conveniently forgotten everything that has gone before, save for a few isolated memories of the wife he treated so badly, is a fine vehicle for his still potent abilities.

Kitchen, the part he plays, has become a nuisance, a geriatric Pan who interferes with girls, pees in people’s gardens, disobeys his doctor’s instructions and causes endless annoyance to the daughter who has to look after him. And as such, it is a sad reminder that beneath public figures there are human frailties and fallibilities which cause respect to disappear when the reason for that respect has been taken away. Though Early Days is Richardson’s show, the irritation and pain of those closest to the pathetically fallen giant are well depicted by Sheila Ballantine, Edward Judd, and Marty Cruickshank. Lindsay Anderson’s direction is impeccable.