By placing the play in a fifties setting, where Othello is a black general - valued for his valour but not quite accepted for his colour - the racial tensions work powerfully (especially for those in the audience now grown a little into the sere).

The orchestration throughout is assured - combining speedy intelligent rendering of Shakespeare's text with some daring interpolations. Before the action begins we see and hear Othello (Patrice Naiambana) wooing Desdemona (Natalia Tena) in a strange, proud, haunting African duet; the drinking scene centres on an Al Jolson figure singing to the troups while a crude mime is played out with a Desdemona dummy; the dead Brabantio (Hannes Flashberger) visits Desdemona as they sing together the 'willow song'. And there is some inventive, imaginative, economical staging: two easily manipulated ramps form both ships at sea and a Rialto bridge; meshed shield-shaped panels variously suggest a battlefield, sea waves and the dislocation of Othello's mind.

Presiding over the action from start to finish is an Iago (Michael Gould) who manages to fuse the demonic with a sickeningly plausible ordinariness. His gulling of Roderigo (a touchingly comic performance by Marcello Magni) and Cassio (a most likeable, plausible Alex Hassell) is achieved with dramatic pace verging on comedy. It is only in his relationship with his wife, Emilia (a quite brilliant performance by Tamzin Griffin) that we sense the awfulness of domestic life with one whom the men regard as an 'honest', likeable chap. And in the final scene it is Iago's smug self-satisfaction blending into an almost involuntary laughter which provides a chilling end to a production likely to live on and on in the audience's minds.