There is nothing polite about Frantic Assembly’s Othello. No prettified classic, it is vulgar, tough and fractious. We are in a modern-day gangland where tensions rise over the pool table and fights break out by the bins. To survive, you need to be quick, brutal and unforgiving.
That is why Michael Akinsulire makes such an unnerving lead. In a production revived after outings in 2008 and 2014, he is not a mild-mannered victim of racial injustice – although injustice it is – but an alpha-male pack leader, formidable and muscular, who is wounded by Iago with a psychological blow more penetrating than any knife attack. Hurt and imbalanced, he is made dangerous.
