Sandwiches and tea, good news for Yorkshire theatre, excellent news for Northern Broadsides, the company that will produce the play, and Lenny Henry on good form, throwing out impressions of Caribbean women and Richard Pryor.

He was looking forward to playing Shakespeare's black hero, said Henry, who's beloved of TV audiences for his role in Chef! and the odd serious turn in dramas like Hope and Glory, but mostly for his many years of stand-up and sketch shows. This will be his stage acting debut.

"We're looking forward to having Henry in the company," said director Barrie Rutter.

"We're looking forward to hosting the production," said West Yorkshire Playhouse artistic director Ian Brown.

Finally, amid the optimism and bonhomie, the question was asked: is this just a gimmick?

It's been going on for years, of course, but the modern phenomenon of putting a star name on the bill and seeing the audience roll in was really kicked off in 2002.

In spring that year ecstatic theatre audiences could see Nicole Kidman baring all at the Donmar Warehouse in the Sam Mendes-directed The Blue Room.

The willowy Australian actress made her name acting in television shows and films like BMX Bandits. Her Hollywood breakthrough came in 1989 thriller Dead Calm.

After impressing in that, she went on to hone her craft and won a clutch of awards for roles in films like To Die For and Moulin Rouge! An Oscar came her way when she played Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

Whatever faith director Mendes put in his leading lady, and no matter how staunchly he defended her when the plan was announced, there was no getting away from one simple truth – she was untested on the stage. Any faith put in Kidman was blind. Luckily that faith was rewarded.

Greta Scacchi found out the difference between acting in the theatre and on screen the hard way when the play in which she starred, The Guardsman, closed soon after opening and early poor reviews in 2000.

Daryl Hannah in The Seven Year Itch was judged to have put in a one-star performance. Madonna's foray onto the boards turned out to be the epitome of this star culture gone wrong.

Her name sold out the Wyndham's Theatre many times over when it was added to the cast list for David Williamson's Up For Grabs in 2002. But previews were cancelled amid rumours of certain cast members not being up to the task.

At opening night the BBC interviewed fans who had been lucky enough to secure a seat. One was reported as saying: "I thought she was absolutely awful, but I still love her. I didn't come to see the play but her personality is larger than the play which is why I love her."

And there is the problem.

Lenny Henry as Othello should be a sell-out at the Playhouse. He will, as he said he hoped to last week, bring in a more diverse audience to the theatre, an audience which will be there simply to see the funnyman on stage.

No matter that the staging of one of the Bard's greatest plays, performed by a company with a strong reputation, is the real reason to be in the theatre. As another Madonna fan said at the premiere of Up For Grabs – she could have been reading the phone book and people would have queued for tickets.

So, back to the question: is casting Lenny Henry as Othello a gimmick? Yes, it is, but needs must when the devil drives, and we're in a climate where even a company as much-loved and well respected as Northern Broadsides can always do with extra help to get bums on seats.

Not that Barrie Rutter, the man who will direct the actor, would accept that. "If it was a gimmick, we would stick it in one theatre and let people come, but we're not. We're touring it around the country in the same way that all Northern Broadsides productions tour," says Rutter. "Lenny is coming here on a company wage to do a job of work."

The project came about when Henry was making a Radio Four documentary about Shakespeare and interviewed Rutter. The two met and discussed the initial idea and that led to a workshop in which Rutter directed Henry and his associate director Conrad Nelson, who will play Iago.

Rutter was convinced.

"I'm not an idiot, I wouldn't have cast him if I didn't think he could do it," Rutter reiterates, all but growling the answer.

Nor is Henry himself an idiot. He knows his name will bring people into the theatre, and sees nothing but positives in that.

"I spent most of my life thinking that Shakespeare wasn't for me, but for people who spoke with posh accents," he says. "If people who wouldn't normally come to the theatre come to see Othello then at least we've got them here. That's the main thing."

If the only way to fill the house is to stick a name on the bill that's more exciting to modern audiences than Shakespeare's, then sad though it is, perhaps that is the price we pay for our age's Faustian pact with the devil of celebrity.


Advance tickets for Othello, at £10, go on sale on Friday, October 17, on 0113 213 7700. The play runs from February 14 to March 14 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, followed by a national tour.