Accidental Death of an Anarchist
★★★★☆ Timely
Hill Street Theatre: Wed 14 – Sat 17 May 2025
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Arkle Theatre Company mix humour and deadly reality at the Hill Street Theatre, in their take on Accidental Death of an Anarchist, a farce that keeps living up to its genre with more and more irony.
Tom Basden’s 2023 adaptation of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s riotous 1970 original is searingly up-to-date and regionally relevant, set in offices of the Metropolitan Police in London. Basden easily transports the 1969 events in Italy upon which the original was based, into 21st century England. It’s perhaps even easier to believe now, than then, that an anarchist accused of an urban bombing should be interrogated without evidence by police and subsequently meet his death at their hands.
Wendy Brindle. Pic: Rob Shields.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist picks up after these events, when a person known only as the Maniac (Wendy Brindle) has been taken into custody at these same offices. Displaying what she herself describes as “histriomania”, the compulsive need to perform, the Maniac is ejected from the building by an annoyed Inspector Burton (Steven Bradley Croall).
But she’s not gone for long. Sneaking back in to retrieve her bag of props, the Maniac sniffs about Burton’s office and decides to impersonate the judge who is meant to come and start a new inquiry into the previous inquiry of the anarchist’s death, the two versions not having matched up satisfactorily.
High jinks
High jinks ensue, as the Maniac forces the police to re-enact their interrogation before inevitably being discovered for the fraud she is – all the while poking holes in their logic, and lambasting police corruption and government inefficiency in ever less subtle ways.
Zander Nisbet, Wendy Brindle, Gregor McElvogue. Pic: Rob Shields.
Brindle is brilliant as the Maniac, carrying the lion’s share of the play’s words and a variety of accent and costume changes with skilful sarcasm, dry wit, and many matter-of-fact jabs of varying rudeness to other characters and the audience alike. The Maniac is a role that could easily be steamrollered through, but Brindle succeeds in giving it light and shade, along with excellent comic timing.
Zander Nisbet and Gregor McElvogue as Detective Dan Daisy and Superintendent Curry, respectively, are a delightful duo as they work to ingratiate themselves with the “judge” and get their story straight. The superintendent’s slack-jawed, dead-eyed, mug-clutching shadow, P.C. Joseph, is played with unwavering commitment and superb physical comedy by Gabriel Bird, whether he’s receding into the background or spouting dinosaur facts.
self-absorbed
Rebekka Puderbaugh appears as the journalist come to question Curry about the incident, in this adaptation called Fi Phelan, and subject of many name-based puns. Puderbaugh, who is laconic and dismissive as P.C. Jackson in the first scene, creates a chipper Phelan intent on getting the scoop. However, this is the one character which Basden’s adaptation lets down, making the journalist less sharp and more self-absorbed than other versions of the play.
Steven Bradley Croall and Rebekka Puderbaugh. Pic: Rob Shields.
Perhaps an attempt to comment on the rise of social media pseudo-journalism, Basden’s version of this character isn’t fully successful, getting sidetracked with underdeveloped comments on her social class. Puderbaugh nevertheless makes the most of Phelan, leaning in to her confusion as the Maniac becomes increasingly weirder.
The only person who has any idea what’s really going on is Inspector Burton, with Bradley Croall delivering a wonderfully exasperated and increasingly manic straight-man performance when he finally reappears to see the Maniac holding court. Once Burton finally breaks, it’s Bradley Croall’s frenzied energy that catapults the room into the play’s climax and final, sinister twist.
tight and careful
John Lally’s direction of this timely farce is tight and careful, with only a few moments where the pace could have been pushed along. Making excellent use of its cast’s talents and the limited technical resources of its venue, Arkle’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist will leave you, as the Maniac says, “wheezin’ like a fucked accordion”.
Running time: Two hours and thirty minutes (including one interval).
Hill Street Theatre, 19 Hill Street EH2 3JP.
Weds 14 – Sat 17 May 2025
Evenings: 7:30pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Gabriel Bird, Wendy Brindle and Zander Nisbet. Pic: Rob Shields.
ENDS
