Hard-working cast let down by screwball script

Reporter: Paul Genty
Date published: 12 March 2014


Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Oldham COliseum, to March 22
PUTTING aside for a moment the notion that there is humour in murder by the police or even that a “madman” would care, let alone set about findingthe truth, the idea that Dario Fo’s comedy works anywhere and in any time is rather overstated.

Fo was essentially a satirist of his times; his Seventies lampooning of Italian police and judicial corruption (and of a real-life death in custody) was the comic backbone that informed the more farcical elements of his play for what was mostly the Italian equivalent of Guardian readers.

In other words, you ideally had to be living in Italy in the Seventies to find this play really funny.

Now? Well, to say the cast of six labour mightily for not much reward is about right.

All the gurning, physical comedy and sheer energy admirably expended by “maniac” Jack Lord can’t get over the fact that Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation is screwball and silly, rather than terribly funny, with few jokes but a lot of scatological mucking about, illogical plot twists, inane changes of identity and too much going on — while at the same time lacking much interesting plot development.

Now it could be that I just have a downer on this sort of thing: I also hate the Three Stooges and other dumb comedies. If they happen to be your thing, be my guest.

But it’s sad that such a hard-working cast — Adonis Anthony, Matt Connor, John Elkington, Isabel Ford and Leigh Symonds are the others — has such conviction but such a lame script on which to lavish it.

Despite director Kevin Shaw’s clear love of the piece, all the directorial tricks and visual jokes he employs — hooters in place of swear words, the Maniac’s obviously false identities; the same character’s first entrance out of a filing cabinet and the neat set trick (by designer Foxton) that sees the third floor office become a fourth-floor office by virtue of a large descending office-block backdrop and changing posters on the corkboards (and much, much more) — the comedy for me never quite takes off.