KATHRYN HUNTER’S version of the Moor who loved “not wisely but too well” is set in the 50s with Desdemona as a loving, lipsticked belle and Othello as an confident GI-style general, mocked by his leering men in private with golliwogs and a blacked up singer.

Their love literally provides sweet music, with a swaying calypso that puts you in mind of a junta-ridden Latin American island.

Their idyll is shattered by Othello’s lieutenant, Iago nurtures a seething hatred of his superior, never explicitly accounted for in the text. Iago fans racist outrage in Desdemona’s father and her disappointed suitor, Brabantio. Othello is ordered to Cyprus to repel a Turkish invasion

Patrick Naiambana’s Othello is an imposing, sexy figure with a sonorous, lyrical delivery. But there’s too little to hint at the character flaws which might lead to his fatal readiness to accept Iago’s poisonous suggestions.

His portrayal of Othello’s jealous agony is nevertheless a tour de force performance.

Played by Michael Gould, Iago’s interaction with the buffoonish Roderigo provided light relief as do the vibrant interludes of live singing. Though for me these lighter touches and his cheerful Cockney accent diluted the sense of the character’s impenetrable evil, he was easy to watch.

Iago’s wife Amelia, despite the drink problem she’s ingeniously been given in this production, came across as the sharpest cookie in the box, perhaps in all of Shakespeare, while Desdemona was saved from drippiness by obvious passion – given a convincingly modern twist with a flash of light nudity when they cavorted on a Cyprus beach.

The stage set was well conceived with bridges providing the furniture for beaches, lovers’ trysts and castle ramparts, and the Mediterranean suggested subtly though sound effects and a wind-smoothed tree.

It’s a lengthy performance, and set at a bracing pace, but the tragic finale didn’t disappoint.