As Silk star Maxine Peake prepares to play Hamlet in a radical version of the tragedy, will we be seeing another actress take on a Shakespearean male role? The Londoner ran into Gemma Chan — about to star in David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face at the National Theatre — at the annual Battersea Power Station party.
When asked if the Bard holds any appeal, Chan seemed up for the challenge. “I’d love to do Shakespeare,” she said, “I’d really like to do ...” At this moment Chan’s boyfriend, comedian Jack Whitehall, interrupted: “Othello, you should play Othello. And I’d play Iago.”
However, Chan was more interested in a feminist interpretation of the Moorish tragedy. “An all-female Othello would be good,” she said. “Fine,” Whitehall interjected, “I’d play Iago in drag.” With these two star- crossed lovers, is gender-bending really necessary?
