Othello
William Shakespeare
Northern Stage, HOME Manchester and Citizens Theatre co-production, with Royal & Derngate, Northampton
HOME, Manchester
September 30-October 10,2026; 3 hrs
(also at Theatr Clwyd, October 20-24)
Anthony Almeida’s production of Othello relocates the setting to the Falklands War of 1982. We’re in Port Stanley most of the time, at and after its liberation by the yomping British Task Force.
Othello is a commander in that force; Iago his trusted lieutenant and Roderigo an embedded TV film-maker. The female characters are in uniform, too (though Desdemona seems to get into it quite late on – pity they didn’t have a WAGS hotel available at the time).
The set – designer Natasha Jenkins’ creation is mainly wire netting in a rectangular framework, with a kind of drawbridge lowered on to trestles early on – represents the Army compound and various parts of it, and information is projected at the back to tell us which part at which time.
Nothing wrong with that: the plot line has a soldierly background whichever way you look at it, and we’re used to updated settings for Shakespeare.
There are obvious emphases to be drawn from that: the comradeship of fighting men as their one source of trust; the nature of the military mind to think of all issues in with-me-or-against-me terms and make quick decisions; the desentisisation of those who face brutality every day; the potential for duplicity in all this, as ambition and resentment flourish, and the loyalty of the military wife.
Something of all those is to be seen in Almeida’s interpretation and is revealed by his performers - by some better than others. But the director has got another idea: that Othello isn’t really about jealousy but about belonging, and belonging depending on behaviour. I don’t really buy that: the colour of a person’s skin – even less, that of an actor – is hardly something to be noticed today, and there’s little in the text to suggest Othello has an assimilation problem. But what is so clearly in it is the word – and nature – of jealousy.
Dwane Walcott brings formidable talent to the title role, but I wondered whether he had fully bought in to the directorial concept: Maanuv Thiara makes Iago almost a cheeky chappie, matey with everyone, and doesn’t quite nail the nastiness.
The production also lights up the front rows of the audience for each of the soliloquies, as if to tell us they are addressed to the audience, not thinking aloud – which seems to bring a detachment that defeats the potential of those moments when we might see behind the buttoned-up nature of the military mind.
There are thoroughly adequate performances from everyone else – some better than others at projecting (and all miked up, which suggests it is known there might be audibility problems). Grace Hodgett Young as Bianca and Rebecca Banatvala as Emilia have found individuality and depth in their roles. Chris Garner’s Brabantio and Matthieu Sys’s Roderigo are excellent professional work.
But the stand-out is Phoebe Smyth, making her professional stage debut as Desdemona. She’s a feisty young woman, up for an argument and no one’s fool – and, though there seems no particular reason for her to have to scale the four metre high wire netting fence to get into her own bedroom for the fateful final encounter, it’s certainly an impressive feat of physicality. Another professional stage debutant is Will Stanton as Cassio, catching the nervousness and naivety of the rookie soldier.
There is limited use of the rear projection screen to give us apparent overhead or close-up duplications of what we’re seeing acted (video designer Erin Guan), and also some old-looking footage of war and unrest on an 1980s TV set on the stage; but just why those technical devices were used at those points escaped me.
Likewise Matthew Tuckey’s sound design and composition, with lots of low-pitched rumbling and some portentous thuds, comes in at times of tension (as if it isn’t all a tense tale). There are a couple of songs, of course – we’re given karaoke-style (though not sufficiently visible) lyrics for the first, but not the Willow Song. But singing is not this cast’s forte.
