ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST. To 4 October.
Colchester.
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST
by Dario Fo translated by Simon Nye.
Mercury Theatre To 4 October 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 25 Sept 2pm 27 Sept, 4Oct 2.30pm.
Audio-described 4 Oct 7.30pm.
BSL Signed 25 Sept 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 01206 573948.
www.mercurytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 September.
Punch and punk-drunk production with a softened ending for a bombed-out British decade.>
Looking at the London iconography through the high windows of the police office in Sara Perks’ set for this Mercury revival of Dario Fo’s political comedy, provokes the question how much the 1970 play’s helped by a transplant from its Italian origins, and how much it remains a useful political attack-dog.
Simon Nye’s version of Fo’s intentionally malleable script was used in Bolton’s 2006 revival. Colchester director Gari Jones takes a less physically zany approach than Bolton’s Paul Hunter, putting more responsibility for comic energy on Michael Thomson’s anarchist, who has to go through various incredible disguises while making clear how the Maniac keeps shredding the credibility of police fabrications as to how an anarchist in custody ‘jumped’ from a fourth-floor window which was open on a freezing midnight.
Thomson does a good job in this fine-looking production on Perks’ high, gleamingly black set with its massive drawers (a design that, however, distances the audience in a piece written for easy contact, creating an unhelpful theatrical formality).
Yet a lot comes through strongly, from officers ignoring a fresh-faced, ever-willing female constable to the scene where they repeatedly duff-up one of their number to prevent him spilling some beans in front of a journalist, unaware of precisely what brand of beans he has to spill.
And there’s good work from Gina Isaac’s sexy journalist and the police, especially the sublime comedy of Roger Delves-Broughton’s Superintendent, his face liquefying between hope, fear anger and poker modes. (He mimes playing a rubber guitar so as to suggest a lost period as punk guitarist in the Delves-Broughton CV).
The problem with Nye’s adaptation remains its final cop-out from the increasingly fearsome fury Fo has worked up hitherto; perhaps a final explosive assassination no longer seems acceptable. But Fo also scores a point increasingly evident today; that press and politicians draw criticism from institutions by blaming unavoidable revelations on a few (usually low-ranking, viz Abu Ghraib) people. Nye suggests letting exactly these people have information about what’s been going on. It doesn’t work like that; forget politicos and the Dailys; go straight to Private Eye
Bertozzo: Pepe Balderrama.
Maniac: Michael Thomson.
Constable: Charlie Morgan.
Inspector: Gary Shelford.
Superintendent: Roger Delves-Broughton.
Journalist: Gina Isaac.
Director: Gari Jones.
Designer: Sara Perks.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
Sound: Marcus Christensen.
2008-09-25 10:39:38