Accidental Death of an Anarchist is a rollercoaster of a comedy with a serious message – review
First impressions count, and when Accidental Death of an Anarchist began, we weren’t sure we were going to enjoy it. This is an absolute rollercoaster of a comedy – the pace is relentless, with quick-fire exchanges and unexpected twists and turns as the story is set up.
The humour, at least initially, is pretty firmly in the slapstick, silly, farcical camp – which we find tolerable in small doses, but we weren’t convinced on the prospect of a whole evening of it.
Perseverance is rewarded, however; the jokes become smarter and more abstract, and the madcap premise reveals itself to be an intelligent social commentary on the Metropolitan police.
The original version of this play was written by Dario Fo in 1970 and was based on the real story of a man who supposedly fell from a window while being interrogated by police; the script was based entirely on transcripts of the interviews from the time of the incident.
