Radio review: Othello

Nowadays the title character of Othello is pretty much universally seen as being a black man (and given some of the specific racist language in the play, I tend to agree that's probably what Shakespeare had in mind,) but the word "Moor" was pretty loosely defined at the time, and as well as Africans could encompass anyone Middle-Eastern or Muslim. This is the angle Emma Harding takes for another of her very specific, modern day Shakespeare adaptations, which first aired on Radio 3 in 2020: Othello (Khalid Abdalla) is a Muslim who converted to Christianity, his military skill seeing him quickly rise to the position of General in the Venetian army. Not previously romantically inclined, he's just eloped with the young noblewoman Desdemona (Cassie Layton) when he's given an urgent command: Turkey has sent forces in to recapture Cyprus, and Othello must lead the counterattack.

This he actually does very efficiently, ending the crisis within days, but his bigger problems come from within, as his trusted ensign Iago (Matthew Needham) has, for reasons of his own, suddenly taken against his friend and decided to bring him down. His weapon will be Desdemona, whom Iago plans to convince Othello has been cheating on him with the young officer, and Iago's military rival, Cassio (Max Bennett.)

Like her audio production of The Merchant of Venice, Harding's willingness to be liberal with the sound effects, and confidence to occasionally tweak the dialogue, means her Othello is more succesful than most radio versions of the classics at building a mental image of its new setting. Ultimately though the setting doesn't end up being quite as revelatory about the play and its characters as in the earlier show. Instead what's most notable here is the back-to-basics approach that focuses on the voices, especially of its two leads - both Abdalla and Needham go for soft, gentle and precise readings that turns this into more of an introspective and melancholy tragedy than the usual prevailing tone of machismo and spring-loaded violence. So here the shift into the climactic scene's violence really is a harsh and distressing change of tone.

Iago's motives remain obscure - his status as one of the earliest characters to show sociopathic tendencies and destroy people just because he feels like it is, I think, one of the things that's made him enduringly, morbidly fascinating over the centuries - but with an edited text what you choose to leave in can take on extra significance, so leaving in all the references to Othello having allegedly cuckolded him with his wife Emilia (Bettrys Jones) - despite nobody but Iago ever acknowledging these rumours even exist, let alone have any merit - makes that the primary motive. But in the end his real motive seems to be simply to see how easily he can bring these seemingly solid structures crashing down. And with only sound at its disposal, this Othello reminds us how easily a silky voice can manipulate people, even the audience - it's only because I've seen the play enough times to know how flimsy and dependant on dumb luck Iago's plan is, that I don't buy the image he's selling of himself as the master manipulator.

Othello by William Shakespeare is available on BBC Sounds.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes.

Image credit: BBC.