Broadsides with deathly funny Dario Fo

Nov 28 2008 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

DARIO Fo’s plays have made him a huge hit with theatre audiences but not the most popular of men with some Italian governments.

For many of his plays satirise everything from the Catholic Church and big business to politicians, organised crime and the Middle East crisis.

Fo’s mix of farcical comedy and savage political comment have made him one of the most performed writers in contemporary theatre and in 1997 won him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He’s now in his eighties and still lives in Italy.

Little wonder then that Halifax-based Northern Broadsides have decided to tour with what many see as Fo’s greatest achievement, his play Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

It runs at the Lawrence Batley Theatre from Wednesday to Saturday and is already proving so popular that an extra matinee performance has been added at 2pm on the Saturday.

This is more than an astute political comedy; it is a brilliant expose of police corruption, one which continues to resonate with audiences whether in apartheid South Africa or Ceaucescu’s Romania, which probably explains why it is one of the most performed contemporary plays in the world.

The piece tells the true story of Giuseppe Pinelli, an Italian anarchist who mysteriously fell to his death from the window of a Milan police station in 1969.

He was accused of bombing a bank, although the accusation is seen by many as part of an Italian far Right strategy.

This new 2008 version, written for a modern audience by Deborah McAndrew, bristles with sharply observed satire and couldn’t be bettered suited to Broadsides’ robust playing style.

Conrad Nelson flexes his directorial muscle for the fourth time.

The box office is on 01484 430528. Performances are at 7.30pm.