National TheatreReviewLyttelton theatre, London
Giles Terera stars in a thrilling production with a radical climax that explores the domestic violence in Shakespeare’s play
In 1964, the National Theatre Company staged Othello with Laurence Olivier playing the military commander in blackface. Clint Dyer’s new production speaks to the play’s murky performance history in its opening optics, perhaps even to the ghost of Olivier’s Othello himself. There are posters of old productions projected on to Chloe Lamford’s spare, contemporary set and a cleaner scrubs the floor. Read More...
Carol Rumens's poem of the weekPoetryFrom one of the great black American poets, this harvest song combines formal and vernacular language to potent effect
The Corn-Stalk Fiddle
When the corn’s all cut and the bright stalks shine
Like the burnished spears of a field of gold;
When the field-mice rich on the nubbins dine,
And the frost comes white and the wind blows cold;
Then its heigho fellows and hi-diddle-diddle, Read More...
FictionReviewThe country set confront the realities of the second world war in this sweeping historical epic
The title sounds like a metaphor, but there really is a theatre made of a whale’s ribcage in this sweeping historical epic. It stands on a grassy headland on the Dorset coast, draped in scenery, the creation of young Cristabel Seagrave, whose passion for amateur dramatics ropes in family and servants alike at the Chilcombe estate. Read More...
