As a teenager, Clint Dyer visited the National Theatre and was so shocked to see a photograph of Laurence Olivier “blacked up” in the foyer, he took out a pen and scrawled “Shame on you” on it. Now Dyer is the National’s deputy artistic director, said Nick Curtis in the London Evening Standard, and has become the first black director to stage Othello at a major British theatre.
In one striking innovation, Dyer puts a white-dominated chorus on stage for much of the action, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Becoming a “stylised motif of systemic power”, this mob assumes “shades of a torch-wielding witch-hunt” in the Venice scenes; lurks voyeuristically in the shadows when the action moves to battle in Cyprus; and shifts in “eerie synchronicity” with Paul Hilton’s Iago, a “leering puppet-master” who “barely conceals his daggered looks”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hilton is “devilishly hypnotic”, whereas Giles Terera as Othello “gives us muscularity and measured intelligence”. Both men, though, engage in shocking acts of violence against their womenfolk – “Tanya Franks’s nervously giggling Emilia, and Rosy McEwen’s ravishing, fatally self-possessed Desdemona”.
Strikingly, “the women are not reduced to victims here, while the men, including Othello, are controlling, toxic abusers”, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. To find within Othello a second play, about “the tragedy of domestic violence”, seems an obvious interpretation, “yet it makes the play feel utterly new”.
Not everything works. Hilton’s performance struck me as pantomime-y; the thriller tropes – thunder, rain, “jagged sounds” – are “effective but overdone”; and the significance of the chorus is not always clear. But this radical Othello is “highly watchable”.
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1. Until 21 January
-
Alchemised: how Harry Potter fanfic went mainstreamIn The Spotlight Traditional publishers are signing up fan fiction authors to rewrite their ‘explosively popular’ romances for the mass market
-
Sudoku hard: October 6, 2025The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
-
Crossword: October 6, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
Mustardy beans and hazelnuts recipeThe Week Recommends Nod to French classic offers zingy, fresh taste
-
Susie Dent picks her favourite booksThe Week Recommends The lexicographer and etymologist shares works by Jane Goodall, Noel Streatfeild and Madeleine Pelling
-
6 incredible homes under $1 millionFeature Featuring a home in the National Historic Landmark District of Virginia and a renovated mid-century modern house in Washington
-
The Harder They Come: ‘triumphant’ adaptation of cinema classicThe Week Recommends ‘Uniformly excellent’ cast follow an aspiring musician facing the ‘corruption’ of Kingston, Jamaica
-
House of Guinness: ‘rip-roaring’ Dublin brewing dynasty period dramaThe Week Recommends The Irish series mixes the family tangles of ‘Downton’ and ‘Succession’ for a ‘dark’ and ‘quaffable’ watch
-
Dead of Winter: a ‘kick-ass’ hostage thrillerThe Week Recommends Emma Thompson plays against type in suspenseful Minnesota-set hair-raiser ‘ringing with gunshots’
-
A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?Talking Point Dominated by middle-aged authors, this year’s list is a return to ‘good old-fashioned literary fiction’
-
Fractured France: an ‘informative and funny’ enquiryThe Week Recommends Andrew Hussey's work is a blend of ‘memoir, travelogue and personal confession’
