Since 1970, when Dario Fo and Franca Rame premiered Accidental Death of an Anarchist, there have been more than 3,000 deaths in UK police custody. In that time, two officers have been successfully prosecuted for manslaughter. Those statistics, drawn from the charity Inquest, are projected on the walls of Anna Reid’s set as we leave the theatre, lest we forget this is not just a riotous farce but an angry broadside.
The message has already got through in Tom Basden’s full-blooded adaptation, which is laced with topical references to police malpractice, from dodgy WhatsApp groups to officers taking selfies with murder victims. This play has sometimes shown its age, coming across as an odd throwback to turbulent Italian politics of decades gone by, but for all its surreal swagger, Basden makes it a play for today – even if the targets of his attack are more generalised than specific.
