He wore his heart on his sleeve

You will already have heard that tickets for Othello at the Donmar are reportedly changing hands for a thousand pounds. Mr Charles Spencer of The Telegraph has made it clear that he wouldn't have paid a tenner, whilst Mr Benedict Nightingale of The Times gave it four stars. I thoroughly enjoyed the show last night, and thought the verse so well spoken that it made me think more deeply about many aspects of this particular play. Shakespeare's characters tell us on 11 occasions what a good and honourable man Iago is, so by the 7th or 8th time the audience were giggling. If he was writing the play today, he would surely only mention it 3 times. Two other things puzzled me. Why would an intelligent Moor fall for such rubbish, and why didn't Iago make the Moor King of Italy, rather than trying to bring him down? Still, it was a wonderful evening and Chiwetel Eijofor was magnificent as Othello, and despite the damning with faint praise that Ewan McGregor received, I thought he gave an enthralling performance.

As Laurence Olivier, the first Othello I saw, is no longer among us, I shall be fascinated to hear the views of Frank Finlay who played Iago opposite him. Maybe some enterprising newspaper will pay a thousand pounds to send him to the show and seek his view. If you can get a ticket, go and see it. 4 stars.