I saw this stunning production at the National Theatre and am really glad to have another chance to wallow in it at the Phoenix. It's a traumatic play in a heart-sinkingly brutal production: not a fun evening out, exactly, but certainly... cleansing. Presumably one goes to tragedy for the experience of being taken out of one's own problems; certainly for the second act there was no room in my head for anything but the drama on stage.

The set and costumes are bleakly modern with not a detail out of place, from the chalked pub sandwich board of the opening scene to the subtly depressing greasy walls of the fluorescent-lit barracks rooms. The play transfers horribly well to a modern setting: Desdemona as the nicely brought up, slightly hippified rich girl, men in suits warmongering in a London office, tarts hanging around the army camp, racism hidden by hypocrisy and defended through embarrassment - it makes one very aware of how far we haven't come since the Elizabethans.

Adrian Lester plays Othello very straight and with great power: he is all relaxed dignity, control and charisma in the first half, and degenerates horribly to animal chaos in the second. He's terrific, and his carefully-developed disintegration makes Othello's rather extreme reaction to Iago's lies believable. Iago is such an interesting character - there are so many ways he could go. Rory Kinnear opts for loud, brash, stolid, unlikeable, a little sad: a balding lager lout with a grudge. This is very different from Ian McKellan's coldly sophisticated Iago and I wish I knew which was closer to Shakespeare's original vision.

Of the other actors, for me the outstanding player was Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi in the tiny part of Bianca, Cassio's cheap whore. She was brilliant. She has the skill of making Shakespeare's words sound as though they were written yesterday.

The show I saw was packed and ended with a standing ovation. This screening is a great opportunity to experience emotional catharsis through art, for a fraction of the price of going to London.