I hope it’s not too much of a confession of theatrical ignorance to admit that, before it came to Oxford and the Playhouse, I had never heard of The Price by Arthur Miller – author of such twentieth-century classics as Death of a Salesman, View from the Bridge and The Crucible. One of Miller’s lesser-known plays, it shares many themes with these more celebrated pieces – notably the stormy relationships between fathers, sons and brothers; strong and troubled men coming to terms with their identity; and a clear sense of the social and economic background against which these lives have taken place.

The play opens enigmatically, as a policeman, Victor (Larry Lamb), enters a ramshackle room, full of heavy, dated and valuable furniture. His business there is at first unclear – but the mysteries surrounding the room and its history are slowly unravelled as we delve into the sacrifices, resentment and perhaps self-deception that has scarred his life. The arrival of Victor’s brother, Walter (Brian Protheroe), forces both men to confront the truth about the decisions they have made and the questionable paths they have chosen to follow.

Underpinning this family drama is, typically for a Miller play, a strong sense of the economic and financial pressures that have shaped these men’s lives. The primal event is the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that ruined their father; looming equally large in their minds is the money that Walter refused to lend his brother several years before, cutting short his education. There is a powerful message here about the cruelty of the market and the potential emptiness of lives devoted to worldly success and acquisition.

Both Lamb and Protheroe and Nancy Crane as Victor’s wife, Esther, are fine actors, but the highlight of the evening is undeniably the performance by Warren Mitchell ­– most famous for playing the bigoted Alf Garnett in TV’s Till Death Us Do Part. Mitchell is funny and charming as the furniture appraiser Solomon, whose witty sales patter provides a constant source of comedy in the first act, before the more sombre scenes in which the two brothers face up to the ghosts of the past.

This is a powerful, intelligent and moving drama, graced by excellent performances. I certainly didn’t regret this opportunity to make the acquaintance of another work by one of the modern era’s finest playwrights.