BWW Reviews: OTHELLO, The Lyric Hammersmith, January 19 2015

In a Yorkshire pub (The Cyprus, natch) teenagers do what teenagers do - they flirt and they fight while the passions rise with the volume of the music. The black guy is the odd one out - not just for his ethnicity, but also for his fearlessness in battle, his calm spirit, his clear-eyed intelligence. His followers squabble amongst themselves (as boys too full of testosterone do) and in Iago he has a valued lieutentant, whom he doesn't quite value enough to make second banana. He has the girl too - Desdemona, sexy, sassy and loyal to him even over her father. Iago looks on and, infected with the spirit of the "Green-Eyed Monster", hatches a plan to bring the whole thing down because, well, ...because he can. Or so it appears.

Shakespeare's extraordinary tale of the impact of jealousy is perhaps his most adaptable play - its themes are bubbling whenever men and women meet. Othello's pride and his combination of strong intelligence and weak judgement are found in many men, as is Iago's gnawing envy and malevolent energy (he'd be an internet troll these days). So too, Desdemona's loyalty and belief in her husband's goodness has held many women in abusive relationships, while Emilia's inability to see that great dangers lurk in small acts is also a fundamental human trait. This is not a play about statecraft or the joys of love: it's a play about the corruption of the human spirit, a warning to take nothing for granted.

Frantic Assembly's Othello (continuing at The Lyric Hammersmith until 7 February) is an ideal introduction to Shakespeare for anyone over the age of 14 (indeed, school parties were well represented on the night I saw the play and were excitedly saying things like "Fantastic. Brilliant. Oh My God" as we walked into the cold night. They won't all be back for Hamlet, but plenty will, and they'll never say Shakespeare is "too hard" - and that's a result in itself).

That powerful connection forged with the teens is thanks to director/adapter Scott Graham's sure hand with a splendid young cast who are called upon not just to speak those timeless words, but to dance, to fight and to weep. Mark Ebulue gives Othello his due grace, but also a real menace, and Steven Miller is whip-thin and watchful as Iago, a snakelike person physically as well as psychologically. However, the two girls are the standouts. Kirsty Oswald is heartbreakingly committed to seeing the goodness in men, right to the very end when she accepts her fate with dignity; Leila Crerar carries the true horror of the play, as she realises what the trifling favour to her husband has unleashed. Too late, she understands why the handkerchief meant so much to both Othello and Iago, and the lives it has cost.

This award-winning production takes what might be Shakespeare's greatest tragedy and brings it to a public in a way that roots it not just in their own experiences, but in their own minds too. There's plenty of Othello, Iago, Desdemona and Emilia buried deep inside all of us - we might not like to know that, but we must.

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