Othello reviews round-up at the Theatre Royal Haymarket London starring David Harewood [Updated]

"Toby Jones is a gleefully malicious Iago in Othello"

"Stellar performances anchor this compelling production, which features David Harewood returning to the title role"

"This starry, compelling Othello boasts David Harewood in the title role and Toby Jones – riding high after Mr Bates vs The Post Office – as Iago. That’s a potent box-office draw. And both rise to the challenge, especially Harewood"

"... he is in total command here. Still, the production overall feels uneven, its sense of time and place indistinct. Some elements, such as incidental music by PJ Harvey, seem oddly intrusive."

"... Jones lacks soldierly deportment and gesticulates too much, but he’s a good fit for this duplicitous machinator. He exudes a rumpled, bloke-next-door affability, punctured by gleeful nastiness"

"Caitlin Fitzgerald’s terrific, finally terrified Desdemona, combining innocence with independent-mindedness, stands her ground too. Thus the production... is anchored to psychological plausibility"

"The acting makes the evening, then, and Morris need only trust it more. We don’t require intrusive lighting rigs in the final scenes, or imposing projected images, or eccentric costuming. When the core cast is as strong as this, less is more; the sparer the better."

"Encore for Homeland's David Harewood as he makes a silky smooth return to the role"

"... until you've seen him on stage, you can't appreciate what a class act he really is. And what better way to showcase his silky skills than as Shakespeare's Venetian general, Othello"

"Harewood digs deep into his own well-documented experience of psychosis to show how Othello's easy and assured nature collapses into crazed, murderous credulity"

"[Toby Jones] has the audience taking guilty pleasure in his smirking, vindictive ploys, and then reduces us to shocked silence."

"Even so, the play's ending remains a problem in Tom Morris's fleet-footed production, featuring slightly distracting background music by P J Harvey."

"Great as the acting often is on Ti Green's gracefully metamorphic set, the play endures as a queasy, morally dubious melodrama."

"David Harewood's suave Othello will delight Shakespeare purists"

"With Toby Jones as Iago, the story plays out as an intimate domestic tragedy"

"Even more cheery is the fact that this production of Othello doesn’t rely on gimmicky star casting – we are light years away from last year’s Sigourney-Weaver-in-The-Tempest-debacle, thank goodness – but instead has as its leads actors of quality who have earned their roles on merit."

"There are no fussy tricks or overbearing directorial conceits at work here; instead, the key notes of Tom Morris’s production are clarity and confidence. Purists will be relieved and delighted"

"David Harewood’s stately mien and richly resonant voice give us a calm, confident and centred Othello"

"Jones is blessed with a wonderfully expressive face, which he puts to perfect use here"

"Caitlin Fitzgerald is a strong and charismatic Desdemona"

"Once the cankerous seed of jealousy has been planted, Harewood unravels convincingly, imagining betrayal everywhere, hastening the moment of his own demise."

"David Harewood makes a commanding return to landmark role"

"Harewood is captivating alongside Toby Jones and Caitlin FitzGerald but Tom Morris’s stylish staging could probe greater depths"

"Harewood’s Othello holds your attention with his physical presence and imperial quality, the sniffs, smirks and tics in the lead up to his murderously wounded rage... He woos them, and us."

"... the racist language is still jarring, all the more so perhaps because Tom Morris’s production is modern-dress."

"Toby Jones, never out of fatigues as not-so-honest Iago, fights his battle for domination with a shining relish that borders on the comically conniving."

"Caitlin FitzGerald, as Desdemona, is a smooth blend of strength and fearfulness, her American accent gargled with Irish, it seems."

"Vinette Robinson is marvellous as Desdemona’s maid, Emilia, and the two women’s reflections on the misogyny in their worlds reminds us of Shakespeare’s progressiveness: this is a play about gender as well as race"

"This is every bit a “West End Othello” that is ravishing to look at, immaculately choreographed and darkly humorous. It is pacy and does not probe deeply or seek to connect the play’s manipulations with our era of Trumpian truths and lies"

"It’s impressive but you are not always swept in. This is an unanchored Othello, afloat against its shifting shades of sky. That is both its weakness and strength."

"David Harewood and Toby Jones fail to tug at the emotions"

"Caitlin Fitzgerald’s Desdemona is the standout in an underpowered production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London"

"That aura of profound evil is harder to detect in Tom Morris’s stolid production at the Haymarket"

"Toby Jones’s Iago is as quick-witted and mischievous as you’d expect... yet in the end he doesn’t project the malign force that’s needed to destroy a great man."

"Harewood is similarly understated in the title role. This military genius is suave and faintly self-satisfied, yet his descent into madness never really tugs at the emotions."

"Caitlin Fitzgerald’s Desdemona remains supremely watchable, though. This is no helpless maiden, but a mature woman of the world"

"Why does this star vehicle feel so humdrum?"

"David Harewood, Tony Jones and Caitlin FitzGerald are an accomplished team but this West End Shakespeare is oddly flat"

"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."

"Harewood is an actor of immense charisma and meticulous depth... He brings to it a new gravitas"

"Jones is the great everyman character actor of our generation.. so his layered, loathsome, inveigling Iago carries both shock value and cosy familiarity."

"There’s a lack of dynamism and propulsion to the direction. There’s also an uncertainty of tone: the endless assertions of Iago’s honesty come across as absurd rather than ironic."

"It’s still good to see, and especially to hear, Harewood, Jones and FitzGerald unfold Shakespeare’s horrible tale on this historic stage. But as star vehicles go this is a ponderous one."

"Toby Jones plays Shakespeare’s most notorious villain like a peevish middle manager"

"David Harewood reprises the titular role in a starry production that grants more power to the play’s women, but ultimately dulls its edge"

"One of Shakespeare’s most notorious villains loses much of his malevolence in this starry reimagining of Othello. Here, Machiavellian Iago is played by well-loved screen actor Toby Jones, who gives him all the looming menace of a peevish middle manager leaving a pass agg note on the work fridge."

"Still, when the chuckles die down, War Horse co-director Tom Morris’s production grows into its horror, building into a deeply nasty tale of murder and manipulation."

"Harewood exudes warmth and dignity in these triumphant scenes."

"This production’s Desdemona has got a new maturity too, with an American-accented Caitlin FitzGerald playing her as a woman with a past"

"Morris is good at the moments of physical violence here – the whole audience winces together as we hear a spine snap, sharp as celery. The moments of psychological violence, less so."

"This staging could do with more moments of lyricism and menace, to capture the insidious nature of the evil that patterns through it."

"David Harewood and Toby Jones are excellent in this overly-polished West End Shakespeare"

"Though it would be pushing it to say Tom Morris directs Othello as a comedy, he certainly wrings more laughs than usual out of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.... Not out-and-out hilarious, but with a glossiness that speaks of a desire to go easy on a West End audience."

"[David Harewood's] new Othello is a precise, confident, seemingly unflappable man who shows little sign of jealousy or doubt for a long time. But his extreme rationalism proves his downfall"

"Jones is a thoroughly entertaining Iago, who tackles Shakespeare's elegant verse with a coarse vigour that helps explain why the other characters like him so much: he comes across as plainspoken, dowe to earth, and funny."

"It is slick and entertaining, though, with Harewood and Jones both speaking the verse with pin-sharp lucidity. Also good is FitzGerald as Desdemona."

"It’s a solid commercial show, but as recent West End productions by Jamie Lloyd and Robert Icke have shown us, you can get away with being a lot more daring than this when it comes to putting Shakespeare into a commercial theatre. This is accessible. But very safe."

"David Harewood stars in an Othello that thrills but lacks coherence"

"Tom Morris’s production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket features fine performances that don’t quite hang together"

"... the War Horse director has chosen Othello, a play inextricable from its charged history, and one that demands a group of actors at the top of their game. Well he’s got those; it’s just a shame they seem to be in different productions."

"What Morris coaxes from them is an accessible, clear production, free of any particular concept, and thrilling moment to moment. But it’s also something of a grab-bag, set in a slightly abstracted military world where comedy and horror, underplayed psychopathy and overplayed fury, naturalism and a little bit of ham rub uneasily alongside each other."

"Where Harewood’s Othello is all about presence, Jones’s Iago is barely noticeable, somehow disappearing into his own skin when onstage. He has a sad comic quality, but mostly he remains inscrutable, with just a slightly raised eyebrow. And he simply stays that way."

"Vinette Robinson is a wonderfully naturalistic Emilia"

"Morris gives us a production that is always handsome, always watchable, but blocky and disparate, too — not helped by ominous droning music from PJ Harvey"

"David Harewood is a ferocious Othello"

"David Harewood and Toby Jones star in Tom Morris’ overwrought staging"

"Packed with bold, sometimes baffling choices, Tom Morris’ take on Shakespeare’s tragedy of racism, misogyny and machismo is impactful and accessible, but frustratingly unfocused."

"While this lightness works well in early scenes, it becomes increasingly incongruous as the play rattles towards its bleak conclusion."

"... David Harewood is a ferocious Othello, making clear how his past trauma – displacement, war, imprisonment – has shaped his personality."

"He shares some palpable chemistry with Caitlin FitzGerald’s Desdemona. Both glow with happiness at the outset, then quickly turn brittle and cold. FitzGerald skilfully captures Desdemona’s guiltless, guileless openness."

"... Toby Jones makes an especially sour, overtly villainous Iago."

"The piece has a striking, somewhat distracting design."

"Composer Jon Nicholls and iconic alt-rocker PJ Harvey provide an underwhelming score of ominous droning ambience"

"In 1997, David Harewood was – shamingly, given the lateness of the date – the first Black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre. It’s his misfortune that in returning to the part some three decades on, when he felt he had more to give, he has landed in this disjointed production by director Tom Morris."

"Its principal problem is that all its stars seem to be starring in a different version of Shakespeare’s play."

"The advance publicity has suggested that Morris’s intention was to play Othello both as a love story and as a thriller, yet in the end, it is not suspenseful or engaging enough to be either."

"All in all, it is a curiously old-fashioned and superficial version of a play that cries out for a powerful vision. A disappointment."