Chicago-based hip-hop crew the Q Brothers bring plenty of verve to their remix of Shakespeare's cross-cultural tragedy that has Othello strutting the stage as an amiable gangsta rapper.
By sampling Shakespeare in the same spirit as West Side Story draws on Romeo and Juliet, the show can be appreciated on its own terms as a highly inventive musical with great songs and wickedly funny rhymes.
But the production also throws a light on the original and Othello's military ethos finds an illuminating equivalent in planet hip-hop with its fierce tribal loyalties and macho dissing of rivals.
The translation is particularly effective in Iago's manipulative villainy and GQ's commanding performance as the puppet-master.
Equally successful is the portrayal of Iago's wife, Emilia, as the only character capable of seeing through her husband's mind games. The show-stopping rendition of It's a Man's World, by a girl group in burlesque-style drag fired up the audience with a heartfelt indictment of male duplicity.
