Toby Jones plays Shakespeare’s most notorious villain like a peevish middle manager
6 / 10
there’s a certain chemistry missing from their interactions – it doesn’t feel like this cool Desdemona is so sexually entranced by Othello that she can’t flee him, even when her life’s at stake. 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. As Iago, Jones is completely convincing without channelling the inner darkness you’d expect from this destructive force. Instead, an excellent Vinette Robinson becomes the emotional heart of the play as Desdemona’s maid Emilia. “Men are but stomachs: they eat us, then they belch us,” she says, bitterly, before becoming consumed by her own quest for justice.
