'In dreams begins responsibility,' used by Yeats as the epigraph to his 1914 volume, could stand also at the head of all Dannie Abse's published plays. From the first performance of House of Cowards in 1960 to that of Gone in January in 1977, their dramatic images have been concerned with the making of choices and with the recognition of moral imperatives. Though differing considerably in setting, technique and achievement, the plays are obviously linked, obviously the products of the same imagination.

These plays are aloof from the main currents moving through English theatre in the sixties and seventies, which in itself awakens sympathetic curiosity. If they have an affinity to anything outside themselves it is perhaps to the radio play, that underestimated form in which reliance upon language is often virtually complete. That is not to say that Abse's plays lack theatricality, as we shall see, but it is...