Thinking about it, the 1940s seems a good fit for a Shakespeare play. It’s just long enough ago that some of the anachronisms that can never quite fit into a modern production can make sense – the general attitude towards women, or in this case the issues surrounding Othello’s race. Yet it is recent enough to make the drama accessible and relevant. It’s also unbeatably stylish, and this is certainly translated in Rebekah Fortune’s film noir reimagining of Othello.

Fortune’s Othello is fast and pacy – cut down to just two hours, you feel a sense of urgency. The dialogue is well-mastered: my friend who had never seen a Shakespeare before followed along with next to no trouble, which I think is a vital litmus test for any Shakespearean production.  Badly-spoken verse can lose its meaning so easily.

Libby Todd’s set is cleverly perfunctory, as the use of drapes and lighting sculpt the space well, and find a way around some of the plot difficulties of Othello.  However, after the atmospheric first scene in a classic 1940s bar, the set and locations become much simpler, which is a shame. Similar can be said for the updating of the play. The first scene is clever, with Brabantio disturbed behind closed curtains with a nightclub singer, but after that little effort seems to be made to find a home for the action. There is a lack of any military presence, which is slightly confusing: you easily forget that these are military men, which makes Iago’s original grudge of not being promoted easy to forget also. This period was full of military conflicts, and I’m sure the use of one would have further grounded the plot in reality.

Stefan Adegobola gives an impressive portrayal of a man losing his sanity, particularly in the bedroom scene. I also enjoyed Peter Lloyd’s northern Iago, capturing the character’s cold calculation coupled with odd charisma, making us laugh in his soliloquies and shocking us with his cruelty. His baiting of Othello is funny, so that the gravity of the conclusion smacks us in the face when we are confronted by it. A few slip-ups will, I’m sure, be ironed out in time. Another notable performance comes from Max Wilson’s Roderigo, who is funny and actually rather loveable.

It isn’t perfect: Fergal Phillip’s Cassio is not likeable enough, and the relationship between him and Gillian Stroyan’s Desdemona is played too strongly so that even we suspect they are up to no good. This distracts rather from her snow white innocence, which can crystallise the injustice of the piece. The whole cast, however, is extremely strong, and the conclusion (if slightly marred by the use of clearly plastic knives) is suitably gasp-inducing.  It made me jealous of anyone who had not seen Othello before.

Othello is playing at Riverside Studios until 8 February. For more information and tickets, see the Riverside Studios website.