THEATRE

Othello Lyttelton Theatre, London Until Jan 21, 3hrs ★★★★★

As you walk into the theatre there are projected shots of some of the greats who have played Othello, notably Laurence Olivier, who laboriously burnished his torso to a parade-ground gloss with tea towels. Backstage, Maggie Smith, his rebellious young co-star, famously mocked him by muttering: ‘How now brown cow.’ He was by all accounts great in the part, but he must have looked ridiculous, if not downright offensive, even 60-odd years ago.

This Othello has no truck with Olivier or the white history of the part. It features Giles Terera – a smashing actor and the star of Hamilton – and it is staged (a first for this play at this address) by a black director, Clint Dyer. The upshot is intelligent, pacy and bristling with what Tony Benn called ‘ishoos’.

But it also seems determined not to give the audience much pleasure. That’s a shame. Othello is a role of gorgeous poetic grandeur, Shakespeare’s glittering verse disintegrating into an ugly spew of syntax as the Moor slowly goes mad with jealousy. This version is hot on relevance but it’s never ravishing. Terera can barely get a line out without having to compete with some spooky sound effect.

The Venetian senate exude menace towards their general and stay on the stage. This version thus maximises the race hatred, although it cuts Othello’s anti-Muslim slurs in an unwise and altered ending.

Nor is there a fleck of Mediterranean colour in this version: the huge grey steps on stage echo the concrete brutalism of the National Theatre itself.

Terera’s Othello has whip scars on his back from a previous life of utter hell. His scenes with his young wife Desdemona (a jump-suited Rosy McEwen) radiate true love. The baddie, Iago, is superbly played by Paul

Hilton sporting a nasty little moustache. You wouldn’t buy a used Jag from him.

Iago’s poor wife Emilia

(the excellent Tanya Franks) has red welts on her face, the viciousness of her domestic abuse hard to watch. The moment when she and Desdemona sit on the front of the stage and discuss ‘these men’ is wonderfully tender. The production, as I say, exploits Terera’s formidable stage presence.

But as evenings go, it’s frankly a bit of a downer.