Othello at Theatre Royal Haymarket: ‘Why does this star vehicle feel so humdrum?’

Toby Jones’s Iago is married to a black woman: Vinette Robinsons’ Emilia, impressive in her early muted submission and in the later depths of her anguish. But racial hatred combines with thwarted ambition and a seething sexual disgust in his desire to destroy Othello. Jones is the great everyman character actor of our generation. As he has pointed out, some think he always plays villains, some that he always plays saints, like the hero of the Post Office scandal Mr Bates – so his layered, loathsome, inveigling Iago carries both shock value and cosy familiarity.