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Hi, just a quick heads up for UK members. Lenny Henry's Othello is being broadcast this afternoon on R4, 2.30. It's got a good write-up for both Lenny, and the actor playing Iago.
"Every Iago is a scheming, villainous traitor, but this guy means it. Very real, very scary."
Great stuff. I'm off to listen.....:)
I thought Lenny Henry was quite good, actually.
Saw the play when it was in the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Lenny Henry was surprisingly good, but the direction was simply horrible. The director (the imbecile also cast himself as Brabantio) was trying to squeeze comedy from a play that really doesn't contain any, and you could see his hand in meddling, stopping the few good actors (ie, Othello and Iago) from doing things properly. Iago was good, although I suspect the hand of the director in his jarring, mercurial mood-changes - you know, demonic clown to calm sociopath to oily manipulator to demonic clown every few minutes. I went with some friends who had never seen a Shakespeare before, and by the interval they had formed the resolute impression that it was a comedy. Most of the audience seemed to feel this way too - so much so that by the time Othello was throttling Desdemona in their bed, her limbs flailing as she desperately fought for her life, the entire audience were laughing merrily at the scene.
Two good actors and a great play wasted on a mediocre cast and a truly dreadful director.
There should have been more drive, I agree; the accents were rather too cheery to have tragic status.