Andrew Davies uses the original text of William Shakespeare's Othello by appropriating, transforming and differentiating certain aspects of the play in order to create something new. Davies changes the context of the text through using film instead of on-stage play, the visual meanings, personalities and names of the characters and the context of original text.

Davies uses elements of the plot as starting points then expands and changes aspects of the text around. This is done because Shakespeare's text was created for an audience of his time and in modern society parts of his text would be found hard to understand or not relevant in modern society. For example, Desdemona's handkerchief in Shakespeare's text was transformed in Davies text into Othello's robe.

Davies film is set in contemporary London as opposed to 1600 Venice. Therefore, the differentiation of the times creates a shift in values between Shakespeare and Davies'...