In this essay, retired Major-General Jonathan Shaw, who served as commander of the allied forces in southern Iraq in 2007, gives a vivid account of his role as military adviser during the rehearsals of Nicholas Hytner’s production of Othello at the National Theatre in 2013. Shaw explains why he focused his briefing of the actors on the dynamics of garrisoning, on how ‘command’ operates, and what the stresses and strains for soldiers are in these circumstances. Shaw’s first-hand experience as a military leader stationed in the Middle East during the Iraq War gave the actors fresh insight into how the play’s wartime setting, as much as Othello’s racial diversity, shapes his reaction to Cassio’s disorderly and drunken behaviour and to Iago’s accusation of infidelity against Cassio and Desdemona.

The conclusion considers how the principles currently informing the allocation of public funding to theatre are having little impact on encouraging acoustic diversity on the Shakespearean stage, especially in Shakespearean production recently staged by large National Portfolio Organizations (NPOs), such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. A statistically insignificant amount of public funding is currently invested in supporting smaller companies or independent projects, which seem better placed to diversity the soundscape of Shakespeare in performance.