Bard On A Wire: Othello vs. McNulty

As a big fan of The Wire, the chance to see Jimmy McNulty take on Lester Freamon in the Crucible's recently concluded production of Othello was one I couldn't miss. But much as Lester was my favourite character in that show and Clarke Peters' Othello was convincingly regal, it was Dominic West's Iago who stole this show, bringing a much-needed levity to one of Shakespeare's darkest tragedies.

The Wire gave us ample evidence that nobody plays the lovable rogue as well as Dominic West, an actor who even managed to make serial killer Fred West frighteningly likable in ITV's recent drama, Appropriate Adult. Those two roles also demonstrated West's versatile voice: from a pitch perfect Irish Baltimore cop to a demonically charming West Country bumpkin-psychopath (not to mention his public school RP 50s newsreader in The Hour): this guy does accents better than most. Back in his native Sheffield though, West chose to play Iago for the hometown crowd as a conniving Yorkshireman. This was Iago for the Full Monty generation, a hilarious portrayal that won the audience's affiliation early on, leaving little sympathy for Othello. It didn't help that Peters chose to distance the Moor further by playing him as an increasingly pompous Spanish Jack Sparrow, with an accent straight off the Fast Show's Chanel Neus. It may just be my poor hearing, but many key lines were lost to the acento.

Nevertheless, this was still a powerful and hugely entertaining performance. Strong support was given by Alexandra Gilbreath as Iago's conflicted wife, Emilia, and Lily James as Desdemona. Thanks to West, this was one of the funniest Shakespeares I've ever seen, showing just how much room for interpretation there is in these texts. That said, I was left wondering if a better title for this production might actually have been 'Iago'. Everybody loves a rotter.

Kill Shakespeare

You might imagine that on a Venn diagram illustrating people who read comics and people who enjoy Shakespeare, the area of intersection would be slight. You would, of course, be mistaken. After all, many comic fans grew up on the high-falutin' prose of Stan Lee, who modelled the dialogue of characters like Thor on a cod American take-off of the Stratford bard.

Then in the late 80s, a new breed of comic was spawned by Neil Gaiman's Sandman which stole themes and even characters from all kinds of classic literature and used them to a variety of ends, some dazzling, others less so. (Don't start me.) Arguably Sandman created a whole new audience for comics - not just goths, but "serious" readers. Other books soon followed suit, notably Bill Willingham's Fables which brought us dark, adult interpretations of classic fairy tale characters, and recently Mike Carey's The Unwritten, which involves the creator of a fictional Harry Potter-esque hero and the son he may have based that character upon.

All of which brings us to Kill Shakespeare, a comic with such an inspired high concept pitch, you can't believe no one's done it before. The Bard's greatest creations - including Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, Richard III and Lady Macbeth - are pitched against each other in a thrilling quest to locate a legendary wizard with a magic quill. Whosoever possesses that quill will have power over all their domain. The wizard they seek? William Shakespeare.

With such excellent characters at their disposal, writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery are obviously going to have a blast. When Macbeth's witches prophesy that a "shadow king" will be the one to take Shakey down, Richard III hires Iago to befriend the reluctant prince Hamlet and steer him towards his destiny. The resistance, meanwhile, led by Juliet and Othello, believe the godlike Shakespeare will be the one to finally free them from Richard's tyranny... but they too are counting on Hamlet's help. Hamlet, of course, is fiction's greatest ditherer, and also, quite possibly, two odds short of a bodkin, considering all the wild hallucinations he keeps having. Add to this Lady MacBeth, whose passionate seduction of Richard gave me slight cause for concern (since "if he cannot prove a lover, he's determined to prove a villain") until I realised her scheming extends much further than just Richard's bedchamber.

Kill Shakespeare is packed with bloodthirsty battles, dark magic, bawdy comedy, brutal betrayal, lust, sex and murder... just like the very best of the bard. The nod to Tarantino in the title is appropriate, but this is much less self-consciously cool than anything from the Geek King himself. The dialogue, though faithful to its source material and packed with sly references, doesn't try too hard to meet its maker. Andy Belanger's art strikes the perfect balance between cartoon and realism, ably handling detailed, multi-panel pages and chunky tracts of text, while colourist Ian Herring uses the full pallet - something that's often reserved solely for superhero adventures in comic book land, while books of this kind often restrict themselves to pastels or shades. It's a knowing move which demonstrates what all the creators understand well - not only was Stan Lee the 20th Century Will Shakespeare... but Shakespeare was, in his own hyperbolic, crowd-pleasing way, the Stan Lee of his day.

Volume 1 of Kill Shakespeare (collecting the first six issues) is available to buy now, and I'd recommend it to comic fans and literary types alike. If you do exist in the aforementioned Venn intersection, it's an absolute must.

Looking for more comic reviews? Check out Comics On The Ration, the new(ish) blog for comic fans feeding their addiction on a budget from Rob Wells and Paul Rainey, featuring occasional contributions by Steve Miller and myself. (I'll be reviewing Rick Remender's Punisher there shortly.) Add it to your blog list!

Death Of A Salesman

Considering all the years I've spent in this terrible, terrible occupation, it should come as little surprise to anyone that one of my favourite plays is Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. If he'd ever written a sequel - say Torture & Mutilation Of A Salesman, I'd have been its biggest fan. But the truth is I loved DOAS long before I began swimming with sharks. It's one of those plays they get you to study in High School, and rightly so. In many ways it's a cautionary tale about the danger of ambition, and about pursuing a career based solely around the acquisition of wealth and material possessions when, obviously, true happiness lies elsewhere. Willie Loman isn't a likeable hero, but he is a hugely sympathetic one - especially as portrayed by the superb Philip Jackson in the recent production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

It's a good few years since I last saw Death Of A Salesman, but this time it really kicked me in the balls. Perhaps it's the sort of play that hurts more as you get older, or perhaps this was just a really powerful production. Willy Loman is a man whose whole life is built around the self-delusion that he is popular, that he is successful, that he is "well-liked"... when in truth he's a man long past his prime, if he ever really had one. How long can such a man continue to fool his family, his friends - even (especially) himself? It makes you question your own sense of self. I never consider myself particularly "well-liked", I certainly never consider myself any kind of success... but there are many other ways in which we fool ourselves about our worth in this world, or how others see us.

I cried at the end of this performance, but was I crying for Willie Loman... or all of us?