Imagine Russell Brand playing the noble Brutus. Suppose Frankie Howerd had been cast as Antony or Cleopatra, or both.

It’s almost more of a stretch for that affable, hugely likable comedian Lenny Henry to be tackling the distraught, doomed Othello. Isn’t he on record as saying that a dire schooling in Dudley left him thinking Shakespeare was “all funny old words”, “gobbledegook” for posh people only? And as admitting that, having learned to love the Bard in later life, that he still thought performing his plays would be “scary, with all those lines to learn, all that stinky language”?

Well, I don’t think Lenny should give up the night job, or, rather, he shouldn’t regularly substitute his old joky evenings for new tragic ones; but his Moor is far better than I, or indeed he, had feared. There are flaws in his performance, but also the dignity, the anger, the bewilderment, the pain the part demands.

And in this he’s much helped by the director and company that last night gave him his Shakespearean debut in Leeds. Barry Rutter’s Northern Broadsides values its regional roots, embraces non-posh voices and goes in for bold, direct, unfussy work as far removed from metropolitan preciosity as its home in the basement of a Halifax mill is from the Inns of Court.

For reasons that elude me, everyone in Rutter’s Victorian-dress revival has a Yorkshire accent bar Henry, who speaks BBC English. But never mind. His Othello enters, an imposing figure in a majestic robe who is quite unmoved by the racist insults that bang with more than usual force across the bare stage.

It’s a prejudice he has learned to accept, as he shows by giving a tiny, fatalistic sigh when the Venetian doge commends him for being “far more fair than black”.

But there’s a problem, though it’s one that afflicts several actors, at times even Conrad Nelson’s excellent Iago: a rushed and sometimes scrambled diction that made me wonder if Henry hadn’t learned those scary, stinky lines almost too well. Who is the “ancient conductor”? An old boy issuing tickets in a hop-on bus that’s been bizarrely introduced into watery Venice? No, Henry is simply saying “ancient, conduct her”, meaning “Iago, lead Desdemona offstage”. And does he think Iago looks “dead with gravy?” But, no, the villain hasn’t been overeating, just pretending to be dead from grieving. But time will surely teach Henry to put more rubato and lento and less presto into a performance that has undeniable merits. Henry’s Othello is the husband, tender and doting. He’s the general, curt and tough.

He’s also the self-professed cuckold, breathless in his surprise, barking with rage, grief spreading over that big, open face of his.

I’ve seen Othellos that have more variety, delve deeper, fall in an epileptic-style fit more plausibly, and add much more texture to such key lines as (to Iago) “I am bound to thee forever”.

But this decidedly isn’t opportunistic casting on the part of Rutter, whose production also has the Broadsides strengths of energy and pace. And he has a sweet, girlish, ingenuous Desdemona in Jessica Harris and one of the most malevolent Iagos I’ve seen in Nelson. I was momentarily put in mind of a thin, mean skinhead sibilantly spitting out contempt at a striker called Cassio and the other opposing players at Leeds FC; but I came to feel that this was to belittle a performance that’s far more stealthy, sinister and frightening.

You believe he’s capable of destroying Henry’s Othello. And you believe in Henry’s destruction.

Box office: 0113-213 7700 to March 14

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010