Though never one to fight shy of a challenge, the comedian Lenny Henry appeared to have gone a little far, even for him, in his decision to take to the stage in one of Shakespeare’s most demanding roles, that of the jealous, wife-murdering Moor, Othello. In fact, he has proved he can do it, brilliantly. The critical bloodbath that had been expected by some became instead a chorus of praise for his talents as an actor.

These actually came as no surprise to me. As long ago as 2004, I had hailed him “an actor of enormous skill” after he had given us convincing portraits of a whole family – including a big, bouncy, beautiful, bible-bashing mum – in the course of a two-hour show at the Oxford Playhouse. This observation, I recently learned, had some influence on what has happened since.

I caught up with Henry’s performance last week at the Theatre Royal Bath, where Northern Broadsides were playing to sold-out houses, as they have throughout their tour. (Fans will be pleased to learn that there will be another opportunity to see the production from September at London’s Trafalgar Studios.) Though there had been a matinee earlier in the day, there was no sign of tiredness or strain in his work or that of the hugely talented company of which he is part. We were given an emotion-packed three hours of impressive ensemble acting from which the passion and poetry of this great tragedy emerged in all their shattering power.

Directness and intelligibility are hallmarks of Northern Broadsides’ approach. So, too, is a notable physicality, in which area Henry, with his strapping frame, is able to play a full part. In certain of their loving moments, he hoists Jessica Harris’s Desdemona aloft in his arms as if she were a lovely doll. Later, when Iago’s poison has done its dreadful work, his violent and ultimately lethal assaults on her are the more shocking for the disparity in their size.

Othello is famously a play in which the devil is given the biggest share of the lines, if not always the best ones. Here Conrad Nelson speaks them with a spitting venom that is terrifying to watch. It is vain to question what motivates the malice; this Iago does not really know himself.

If, as he suggests more than once, Othello has seduced his wife, then the idea seems at least plausible considering the attractions of Maeve Larkin’s Emelia. That she clearly has considerable brains as well as beauty, however, makes one wonder, as ever in this play, why she has no suspicion earlier of the terrible purpose to which Iago has put Desdemona’s dropped handkerchief.

It has been used, of course, in providing the final ‘proof’ for Othello of her supposed affair with Cassio (the excellent Richard Standing). This blameless man’s earlier disgracing of himself with Othello – which leads to her fatally misunderstood pleading on his behalf – is managed as well in this production as I have ever seen it. First, there is a pass-the-parcel style drinking game in which the easily intoxicated soldier is repeatedly landed with the ‘prize’; then come the all-too-convincing ructions his drunkenness leads to.

This is a first-class production of which the whole company and especially its director Barrie Rutter (himself on fine form as Desdemona’s bigoted dad Brabantio) can feel justly proud.