Gisele von Guntenbergersen

Othello. Rating: Royal, Northampton

This horseshoe-shaped, Victorian theatre is a neglected treasure. Under its current director, Rupert Goold, it is also pursuing an adventurous policy. Following Beckett, Pinter and Stoppard, it now offers a second world war Othello starring Ron Cephas Jones, who made a big impact as a bible-punching serial killer in Jesus Hopped the A Train. Goold's idea of setting Shakespeare's tragedy in the war raises a logical problem: although black American GIs were unsung heroes, they did not become generals summoned at dead of night to cabinet war-rooms. The dazzling verismo of Laura Hopkins's settings - with Othello first seen emerging from a jazz-dive called the Aleppo - also sometimes leads the actors to treat the language as if it were naturalistic film noir dialogue. What the production does have is enormous vitality and an intriguing Freudian undertow. Cephas Jones is a fine Othello: lean, lovestruck and doubly conscious of his isolation as a black American in the British army. He only needs to highlight more the tussle between punishment and pity in his killing of Desdemona. But the significant idea - though one used by Olivier as long ago as 1938 - is the suggestion that Iago, played by Finbar Lynch with dangerous intensity, is driven by a thwarted passion for his boss. Lynch gazes lovingly into Othello's eyes on "I am your own for ever" and looks set to rape him after he falls into an epileptic fit. Given Iago's pervasive misogyny - underscored here by his stabbing of Bianca - it makes a kind of sense.  

Once you've swallowed the unlikely premise of a black 1940s general, the production works well. Hopkins's design for Cyprus, an enfolding set of De Chirico-like colonnades, is outstanding. Kate Fleetwood's Desdemona combines spirit with fidelity as shown by her abrupt dismissal of Teresa Banham's worldly Emilia. And Jamie Bower, in long khaki shorts straight out of It Aint 'Alf Hot Mum, turns Roderigo into an amusing dupe. The real pleasure, however, lies in discovering that Shakespeare is alive and well outside the nationals and the larger reps.- Michael Pilington.

Photo: Ron Cephas Jones

Best Behaviour.. Rating: Polka, London

This is not just one of the best pieces of theatre I've seen this year, but one of the best pieces I've seen this century: a show that dissolves all those unnatural barriers dividing children's work from adult theatre, an exhilarating and tenderly moving work, with something for every family member. Played not in the theatre but in the Polka's exhibition foyer area, the 75-minute piece - putting a day in the life of the Best family on show - is as much installation as performance, celebrating the best things about being a family and confronting some of the worst. And there is not a sentimental bone in its body: it is sometimes joyful, and sometimes brutally honest about the desperate loneliness of family life.   Best Behavior takes place on stairs that go nowhere, with tables and chairs suspended halfway up walls, and in rooms that have Alice in Wonderland rabbit-holes and baths full of water. Mum is a genuine acrobat precariously negotiating the highs and lows, the children squabble and regroup, alliances are made and lost, and Dad wanders around looking baffled and outnumbered. The center of the show is constantly moving: it is not always quite where you are looking, but often on the periphery. Absolutely nothing remarkable happens, yet it is the depiction of the ordinariness of everyday domestic life, and the emotional richness that underlies it, that makes this show so brilliant. Best Behavior marks a welcome change of culture at the Polka - and a declaration that this little theatre intends to be a big player.-Lynne Gardener. 

The Crucible
Rating: Theatre Clwyd, Mold

The relevance of political plays invariably wavers over time. There have been recent occasions when Arthur Miller's great broadside against McCarthyism has been made to look like little more than a tasteful exhibition of Shaker furniture. But Terry Hands's brilliant post-September 11 production proves that the work has snapped back into focus.

Photo: Louise Collins

Sensibly, Hands does not attempt to displace the action from 17th-century Salem, but the allegorical connections are clear. "These are new times," states the pious witch-finder, Rev Hale. "There is a misty plot afoot so subtle, we should be criminal to cling to old respects and ancient friendships." It is merely a more fluent articulation of George Bush's infatuation with the axis of evil. Maybe someone should have noted that "there is prodigious danger in the seeking of loose spirits" when making the case for war in Iraq.