Although I had never seen this play on stage, I had been impressed and moved by reading it.  When Glyn offered me the chance to play Othello himself, I was greatly honoured, and jumped at the chance.  The group had some fairly heated discussions during the initial stages about the ethics of blacking up, but we settled on a North African, i.e. truly Moorish appearance, with the help of some hair dye, and lots of fake tan and makeup.

One of the things that pleased me mostly about this play was being able to work so closely with Ian; I knew he would make a great Iago, and we had some fairly intensive rehearsals bouncing ideas off each other and developing the characters and their relationship.  Of course, Ian still thinks Iago is the centre of the play, but he got most things right, so I forgive him that!  Between us we had a huge amount to learn, but we'd both played big roles before so the lines came eventually, although not all of them came out all right on the night.

For my Desdemona, I had a young lady by the name of Anna, whose first Villagers production this was.  She was a revelation, balancing fragility and strength perfectly, and giving me a lot to build on.

I found this a very passionate play; the last scene is one of the most draining things I have ever done, riding an emotional roller coaster through the murder, revelation, self-loathing and tragic suicide; I was exhausted at the end of each night.  It was a cathartic experience for me to play this part, and I learned a lot about myself during it.

Although there were moments of self-doubt during rehearsals, I feel proud to have done it, and that I achieved something very worthwhile.  We weren't perfect every night, but there were moments we came very close.