'Othello' review — David Harewood's hotheaded general has a wonderfully wicked scene partner in Toby Jones

Read our review of Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, directed by Tom Morris, now in performances at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 17 January 2026.

Summary

• David Harewood returns to the title role in Shakespeare's mighty tragedy Othello
• Toby Jones plays the conniving Iago who convinces Othello of his wife's infidelity
• Caitlin FitzGerald and Vinette Robinson are a match for them as Desdemona and Emilia respectively
• Tom Morris's production features slick fights and original music by PJ Harvey

It’s been almost 30 years since David Harewood became the first Black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre. Now, he’s back in the boots of the Moorish general who lets the slandering lies of his ensign, Iago, fatally undermine him.

I didn’t see Harewood’s 1997 interpretation, but by his own account he played the part “balling and screaming” with rage – responding to claims of Desdemona’s infidelity and his former lieutenant’s treachery as many young men would. Here in Tom Morris’s polished West End production, he is, at least initially, a man whose years have lent him an acquired wisdom. But his steady authority is soon melted down, and he remoulds his character as a brutish hothead, so mentally swept up in Iago’s conspiracies that he’s no longer able to see those in his orbit for who they are.

Who could pull off such complex trickery? Harewood has a wonderfully wicked scene partner in Toby Jones. He’s a versatile character actor, of course, but after his recent turn as the wholly good justice warrior Mr Bates in ITV’s exposing of the postmaster scandal, and as gentle, downtrodden Uncle Vanya in his last major stage role, his Iago is a welcome reminder Jones can also play thoroughly bad.

Hunched and largely emotionless, save for a crooked smile that suggests he’s enjoying orchestrating the carnage, he’s a conniving parasite, hovering close by Othello and muttering verbal “pestilence” into his master’s ear. He also knows just when to slink into the shadows and furrow his brow, as if as puzzled as the rest by the erratic behaviour of his comrades.

The women are also pleasingly rounded, and in the month where Vogue has declared it officially embarrassing to have a boyfriend, hearing Caitlin FitzGerald’s earthy, serene Desdemona and Vinette Robinson’s fiery truthsayer Emilia bemoan the male-female dynamic with views akin to what we now call heterofatalism feels thrillingly before its time. And yet before Othello’s unravelling, Morris presents a couple on equal footing, whose passion for one another seems intense and true. It’s as Othello accuses his wife of giving away the handkerchief he gifted her that we sense just how deeply Iago’s fabrications have penetrated and spread throughout his psyche.

Between them, this Shakespearean tragedy is in good hands, and if it’s not a revelatory production, it’s certainly a slick one, with each interaction fine-tuned and deftly choreographed – especially the violence. There are dagger fights that play out like tumbling dances, and as Harewood’s Othello headbutts or breaks a neck, Jon Nicholls’ sound effects to amplify these moments are chilling. By contrast, recorded compositions by the great PJ Harvey are unrolled in fleeting snippets and seem underused. Some moments are also slightly too seamless: Jones’s Iago kills off Tom Byrne’s Roderigo in a blur of flailing limbs and out-of-eyeshot plunging daggers that’s easy to miss.

It plays out on Ti Green’s opulent set of golden geometrics, where open doorways could also be mirrors, challenging these characters to see themselves and others in the frame clearly. Nina Dunn’s projections are also cleverly used: in a welcome departure from literal showers on stage (see our review of The Lady from the Sea at the Bridge Theatre), rain is conjured in video form, with pelting droplets hitting a chain curtain. As Othello spirals, black-and-white montages of he and Desdemona laughing together bring his shattered memories into focus – their blanching a reminder this once firm leader has been manipulated to the point of losing his grip on reality.

Othello is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 17 January 2026. Book Othello tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Othello (Photos by Brinkhoff-Moegenburg)