Othello, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester

A minimalist but moving Moor

With the set restricted to a tarpaulin, a map, a sail, a bed and a rough, neutrally coloured floor, Braham Murray's minimalist production of Othello at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre can't be accused of over-elaborate design. Here, undoubtedly, less means more, and Murray's interpretation, pared down in one sense, is heightened in its reach and detail, so that the tension infuses beyond the limits of the central stage space. The vague timelessness of the setting, with the soldierly uniforms and waterproof capes extending to the crew, opens up the stage to the service of the actors and to the text.

Paterson Joseph's interpretation of Othello bursts apart at the seams in its intensity, complexity and truth. Painful to watch in his mental, emotional and physical disintegration, Joseph's jealous Moor is not only dragged down to the ground, he throws himself on it, staggers around it, squirms and rolls over it, his pent-up passion breaking with scorching vehemence from within his fragile shell of dignity and mystery. He weeps, he rages, words tumble over themselves, and spit hurtles from his lips.

Iago cloaks his malevolent manipulation beneath an almost breezy Essex-man exterior, savouring a complicity with the audience. It's an act that is all the more terrifying for the psychotic traces in Andy Serkis's fiercely energetic realisation of the role. Defiant of morality or decency, Serkis masks supreme snakiness with a velvety veneer and, having drawn up the plot, like a ring-master he cracks his whip with a provocative power. Bantering, sneering, snarling, or mimicking those whose destruction he engineers, his quickfire delivery never falters. This colouring of emotional nuances as if they were in a contemporary idiom is a quality that distinguishes the whole production, in fact.

Though the promising young Sam Spruell turns in a stylish performance as Roderigo, not everyone in Murray's largely young cast has quite the experience or imagination to fulfil his vision completely. And the fact that Othello is weighted against the three women characters puts even more responsibility on them. Lorraine Ashbourne is a committed, convincing Emilia, and Emma Darwell-Smith tries to make sense of the problematic role of Desdemona, in many ways one of the most insufficiently characterised and least rewarding of Shakespeare's female creations. Katherine Kelly makes a brave stab at a Bianca whom Murray seems to have plucked from a different time, place and, possibly, play.

The pace throughout is fast, the military men strut and stamp and shout but aren't afraid to speak quietly, too, and in its honest approach to the irrevocable unravelling of a dark domestic tragedy, this Othello will not disappoint.

To 2 Nov (0161-833 9833)