With his bald head, glasses and moustache, Warren Mitchell still looks like his greatest creation, West Ham supporter and grumpy old man Alf Garnett.

But as he shuffles on to the stage at the Theatre Royal and speaks for the first time, we realise Garnett has long gone.

What we have now is an elderly Russian Jew, a dealer in second-hand furniture and a haggler to the core.

He wears a baggy suit, shuffles and staggers and delivers a delicious line in cynicism and wisdom.

He is playing Gregory Soloman, the catalyst for the drama that ensues in one of Arthur Miller's greatest plays, The Price.

If I had not seen Mitchell playing Willie Lomax in Miller's Death Of A Salesman, I would have said this is Mitchell's greatest role. Gregory Soloman fits him like a glove.

You can't take your eyes off him, even when he eats a hard-boiled egg.

Miller's play concerns two brothers who meet for the first time in 16 years to sell the furniture of their long-dead father as the family home is to be torn down by developers.

Victor (Larry Lamb) is a patrol policeman approaching his 50th birthday and contemplating retirement. He believes he sacrificed a career as a scientist to look after his father, who became bankrupt in the Depression and never worked again.

Walter (Brian Protheroe) is the brother who broke away from home and became a successful surgeon. Can they be reunited and reconciled?

In two and a half hours of gripping drama, the family myths are explored and dissected, seriously wounding Victor and Walter and devastating Victor's wife Esther (Nancy Crane).

Slowly, the past is sliced up and examined and the pictures of both sons' backgrounds are demolished like acid eating through metal.

The strength of Miller's writing and superb acting by all make this a gripping play.

Despite having to compete with magnificent performances from Lamb and Protheroe, Mitchell steals the show.