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Othello review: Ingenious Othello but more villainy from Iago, please

Othello (Royal National Theatre)

Verdict: Inventive and enthralling

Rating:

Heavy petting: Desdemona (Olivia Vinall) and Othello (Adrian Lester)

Though it lasts well over three hours, Sir Nicholas Hytner’s inventive Othello zips along.

The Moor’s military camp in Cyprus has become a British Army garrison.

His wife Desdemona (perhaps a bit too boyish to be a squaddies’ pin-up) kicks a football with some off-duty soldiers.

The scene when Othello overhears innocent Cassio apparently boasting about his affair with Desdemona is staged in a communal lavatory, Othello hides in a cubicle.

The show’s opening is its weakest moment: Some electric guitar chords and a scene outside a palpably fake bar in Venice.

 Sir Nicholas uses a street facade which I swear has had several outings recently. New scenery flats, please!

Things improve with the Duke of Venice’s council of war. Suddenly we are in a low, boxy space which could be the Cobra war room at Downing Street.

Enter Desdemona (newcomer Olivia Vinall). How young she is in her leather jacket and jeans. A striking arrival.

Music accentuates the sense of mounting doom, scenes repeatedly ending with ominous janglings.

When the action switches to Cyprus, Adrian Lester’s powerfully-built general can change out of his sleek business suit into camouflage kit.

Male actors often look a bit girly in military desert boots but Mr Lester is a convincing commander, even if his petting of Desdemona in front of the men is overdone.

Vicki Mortimer’s design keeps springing surprises. That low, boxy space turns into a mess room and then into Othello and Desdemona’s sparsely decorated bedroom.

The Moor’s romantic lair is nothing of the sort. Two suitcases on top of the cheap wardrobe somehow catch the nomadic domesticity which is about to be shattered.

And shattered, of course, because Othello has his jealousy stoked by ensign Iago, who is cross that Cassio won promotion over his head.

A slimmed-down Rory Kinnear may convince us that Iago is a crafty and cold-hearted man. But is he evil?

Jealous rage: Othello right, grapples with his scheming ensign Iago (Rory Kinnear)

If that intense vileness is elusive it may be because Mr Kinnear is so liquid an actor, so at ease with Shakespeare’s verse, that he almost gulls us, too.

It is an odd thing to find oneself criticising an actor for being too natural but maybe the extremity of Iago’s nastiness demands a little more caricature – a little more brooding, jaw-clenching villainy – if our minds are to compute it.

That is the sole, slight flaw in an otherwise fine performance from Mr Kinnear who cements his reputation as one of our stage’s stars.

Othello is running in the Olivier repertoire until the autumn. The current booking period is until August but the production will continue beyond that with a National Theatre Live broadcast on  September 26.


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