Othello

In a bold and mischievous stroke, Tom Morris has reimagined Othello as something tantalisingly close to a pantomime. One suspects he wakes each morning to the ghost of Danton whispering in his ear, “de l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” ("audacity, more audacity, and always audacity!") such is his determination to put clear blue water between the traditional reading of this dark, knotted masterwork and the glittering spectacle he’s created here.

From a producer’s perspective, it’s a canny piece of timing. As Christmas looms, there can be few more marketable mash-ups with broader appeal than Shakespeare and panto. There are, to be clear, no dames or chorus lines but the spirit is unmistakably there in its heightened emotion, conspiratorial asides, and wicked humour. The result is a tragedy with a knowing grin, anchored by Toby Jones’s gloriously gleeful Iago, a villain who might as well twirl an invisible moustache as he engineers his master’s downfall.

Jones is a delicious panto baddie, small in stature — especially when standing between the six-foot-ish pair of David Harewood and Caitlin Fitzgerald — but vast in malevolence. Every superbly crafted aside he delivers to the audience lands with relish, drawing waves of laughter from the crowd. When the other characters insist on his “honesty”, the line now triggers knowing guffaws and becomes a running gag so well sustained that it is almost Brechtian in its repetition. Jones’ Iago isn’t lurking in the shadows; he’s front and centre, winking at us as if we’re his co-conspirators in the joke.

Harewood returns to a role he first memorably played thirty years ago and his Othello provides a formidable counterweight: proud, noble, and heartbreakingly human. His descent from confidence to chaos is rendered with real dignity, giving the evening its much-needed emotional ballast. Fitzgerald’s Desdemona is equally strong. As the wronged wife, she is tender without being passive, her final scenes illuminated by a luminous vulnerability that cuts through the laughter like glass.

Technically, the production is superb. Rich Howell's lighting design deserves its own curtain call. Shafts of gold and bruised indigo carve out emotional spaces with cinematic precision. The interplay of light and shadow mirrors the psychological shifts of the play: one moment courtly, the next claustrophobic.

Still, it’s Jones who dominates, transforming Iago into a master of ceremonies presiding over Othello’s unravelling. This is Othello not as sombre tragedy, but as sardonic spectacle. By and by, Morris has created a production that asks whether we, too, are complicit in the pleasure of watching ruin unfold.

Othello continues at Royal Theatre Haymarket until 17 January.


Photo credit: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg