The jazz-age with live music as a touring swing band gather for their next performance, while malevolent trickster Iago begins to sow the seeds of mistrust, provides the setting for a unique version of Shakespeare’s tragedy of ‘Othello’, at Llanidloes this Saturday afternoon, October 12.

It’s stormy outside, and inside tensions are simmering with the critically acclaimed Pantaloons theatre company presenting this tragedy of jealousy and deception at The Function Room, at 2.30pm.

For their autumn 2019 UK tour, Pantaloons relocate Othello to a jazz-age setting, with live music, intense drama, and more than a hint of their own inimitable brand of theatrical mischief.

While this most unsettling of plays might seem an unlikely one for the usually comic Pantaloons to perform, the company is keen to explore the effects of moving between laugh-out-loud comedy and intense tragedy, just as Shakespeare did himself.

Othello is a pressure-cooker of simmering tensions, and The Pantaloons have tried to turn up the heat. Intensely focused on a small number of central characters, this surprisingly modern play follows the twists and turns of their complex psychological journeys over a short period of time.

The Pantaloons’ choice of setting picks up on the play’s musical themes; Shakespeare’s Desdemona is already admired as a musician and singer, and two songs play key roles in the plot. They have also added several new songs, with lyrics based on fragments of Shakespeare’s text.

The Pantaloons are known for their anarchic retellings of classic works of literature having previously put a contemporary spin on works from ‘The Canterbury Tales’ to ‘The War of the Worlds’, as well as many Shakespeare plays.

The company began life over 10 years ago as an open-air theatre company, busking plays for donations in parks and on the streets, where they developed an attention-grabbing, interactive and playful performance style leading to quickly becoming one of the country’s most prolific touring companies.

Tickets are £10 on the door. The tour will also visit Theatre Severn, at Shrewsbury, on Sunday, November 17.