Othello at Theatre Royal Haymarket: 'Why does this star vehicle feel so humdrum?'

Despite lucid central performances from the starry trio of David Harewood, Toby Jones and Caitlin FitzGerald, this Othello feels strangely old fashioned. What we have here is stately West End Shakespeare, well-spoken and measured, directed by Tom Morris and designed by Ti Green in a way that feels curiously adrift from the modern world. The production could have happened in the 1990s, the 1970s, probably the 1950s: even PJ Harvey’s bizarre and sporadic score seems quaint.

The deployment of a prestige cast in a classic – once again a speciality at the Haymarket under the ownership of Access Entertainment – is of course calculated to trigger multiple synaptic associations in a contemporary audience but also harks back to an earlier era. Harewood is an actor of immense charisma and meticulous depth. Astonishingly the first black man to play Othello at the National Theatre in 1997, he returns to the role “declined into the vale of years” at a vital and imposing 59.