Othello

I thought Lenny Henry’s Oth­ello in the North­ern Broad­sides pro­duc­tion at Leeds was pretty good.  He’s quite a big man, so man­aged in his mil­it­ary get-up (belted jacket, tall boots) to remind me of Idi Amin. His rages were quite con­vin­cing — the sol­dier frus­trated — though some­times it’s hard to believe how cred­u­lous he is.  Except that Iago (Con­rad Nel­son) is so con­vin­cing — and Oth­ello believes him –wants to believe him — “hon­est”.   Good per­form­ance of Amelia too.  Bar­rie Rutter’s Bra­ban­tio was a bit too like all the other thwarted fath­ers that Rut­ter plays — I could almost pre­dict his next gesture.