In each issue of D&T we bring you a page-to-stage focus on a play for performance with your students, written by someone who has directed it themselves. Here, Rebecca Thompson introduces Dario Fo's absurdist text
 Daniel Rigby and Ruby Thomas in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2023
Daniel Rigby and Ruby Thomas in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2023 - Helen Murray

Accidental Death of an Anarchist was first performed in 1970 in Italy and has been performed in 41 countries worldwide. Although recently reviewed as ‘riotous’ and ‘dazzlingly funny’, the play was based on a real-life tragedy. In 1969 Giuseppe Pinelli, an Italian railway worker died in police custody whilst being held on suspicion of being involved in a bombing. The police claimed that Pinelli committed suicide, throwing himself from the fourth floor in an act of guilt of his crime, although Fo and the public were dubious about this version of events. Accidental Death highlights the inconsistencies in the police's recollection of what happened; it is a political commentary on their spurious interrogation techniques. Through farce, Fo satirises the insidious nature of corruption.

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