Accidental Death Of An Anarchist (2025)
by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, adapted by Tom Basden
Performances: Tuesday 30 September – Saturday 4 October 2025, Old Fire Station
Contents
Introduction
A fast-paced political farce exposing police corruption through absurdity, satire, and razor-sharp wit. Chaotic, clever, and outrageously funny.
Preview from the SLT website
What drew you to directing this play?
I vividly remember seeing Gavin Richards’ original adaptation on Channel 4 in the mid 1980s, and it was one of the most astonishing things I had ever seen. A powerful message about corruption, brutality, misogyny and the abuse of power by a patriarchal establishment, but staged within the structure of a knockabout farce that broke the fourth wall and ended up invading the TV studio, this was heady and rare stuff – and on prime time TV – in those pre-internet days.
When I saw that the Lyric Hammersmith was producing a new version by SLT favourite Tom Basden, I couldn’t get tickets fast enough. It was a hilarious, hard-hitting night out (so good I saw it twice), and I knew I wanted SLT to do a production once the rights were available. And here we are…
How has Tom Basden adapted the original script?
The original play was produced in 1970, in reaction to real-life events surrounding a death in police custody in Milan. Astonishingly, many of the farcical scenes were based directly on statements and events that emerged during the subsequent trial. Basden sticks closely to the original plot, but the decision to set it in London in the present day jolts us out of any comfort zone that we might have in imagining that police misconduct and brutality are something alien that “couldn’t happen here”.
References to Sarah Everard, Stephen Lawrence, Chris Kaba, and to the Met’s complicity in the phone hacking, undercover spy cops and countless other scandals have an immediacy that really hits home to a British audience, and need none of the exposition that previous versions have had to include when talking about less familiar abuses in Italy. The script is as tight as one would expect from Basden, packed with gags that deliver a series of sharp satirical punches.
On a side note, it’s a pleasure to see that the play is now credited both to Dario Fo and his lifelong collaborator, his wife Franca Rame. For many years her name never appeared on the plays they co-created, her contribution erased by the very patriarchal attitudes the works so often ridicule.
What do you think audiences will take away from the play?
Sides split with laughter, an enquiring mind about authority, and a thoroughly engaging anti-fascist earworm.
What have been the directing challenges?
A play with so much physical comedy business is both challenging and an opportunity for the cast to excel. The collaboration and imagination they have thrown into bringing it to (larger than) life has been astonishing. The range of props has at times tested us to the limits!
Tell us about the characters we'll meet
Contrary to common belief, we never see the Anarchist. We are in a police station where some months previously a train driver, who may or may not have been an anarchist, fell to his death from a 4th floor window in the course of being interrogated about a bomb placed at a railway station. There has been an inquiry into the “accidental” death, but that was such a whitewash that a new inquiry is about to take place.
A man we know only as The Maniac (Ben Farren) happens to be in the police station, arrested by Inspector Burton (Chris Stooke), and decides to impersonate the judge carrying out the new inquiry. Notoriously brutal Detective Inspector Daisy (Adam David Lawrence) and inept Superintendent Curry (Stephen Dyer) were the interrogators, assisted by Constable Joseph (Luke McGuire), and the Maniac unpicks the inconsistencies in their statements, humiliating and ridiculing them while exposing their guilt for all to see.
When investigative journalist Fi Phelan (Han Evans) arrives for an interview with the Superintendent, the cops desperately try to conceal the existence of the new inquiry from her, and the world spirals further into chaos and hilarity.
Describe the play in three words
No laughing matter
Cast
- The Maniac - Ben Farren
- Inspector Burton - Chris Stooke
- PC Jackson - Luke McGuire
- Detective Dan Daisy - Adam David Lawrence
- PC Joseph - Luke McGuire
- Superintendent Curry - Stephen Dyer
- Fi Phelan - Han Evans
Crew
- Assistant Director - Jo Boniface
- Stage Manager - Graham Clements
- Assistant Stage Manager - Ruby Nice
- Lighting Designer - Jo Boniface
- Operators - Jo Boniface and Rachael Lovegrove
- Singing Coach - Alan Walker
- Set Designer - Mark Ireson
- Costumes - SLT Wardrobe, cast and crew
- Show Photography - Jon Schick
- Fight Director - Stephen Hayward
- Set build - Graham Clements, Tim Allwright, Sean Thomas, Mark Ireson, cast and crew
Thanks
For the loans, donations and help in so many other ways:
- Hampstead Theatre
- Cal Beckett
- Liberty London
- Elliot Archer and the Cold Water company
- Kelly Q
- Bex Law
- Event Cycle
- Greg Williams
- Hayley Thomas
- Dennis Fenton
- Dean Moore
- Lily Ann Green
- Owen Thomas James
- Eleanor Strong
And last, but by no means least, all the volunteers in the SLT bar, box office and front of house teams - without you the place would fall apart.
Reviews
Some review quotes go here
Gallery
Reminiscences and Anecdotes
Members are encouraged to write about their experiences of working on or seeing this production. Please leave your name. Anonymous entries may be deleted.
See Also
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1984)
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (2009)
