Swan Theatre Company brings Tom Basden’s sharp, funny Accidental Death of an Anarchist to The Place Theatre, Bedford
Swan Theatre Company is in full rehearsal for its production of Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Tom Basden’s (Plebs and BBC One’s Here We Go) updated and Anglicised adaptation of Dario Fo’s classic political farce.
The play follows the Maniac, a master of disguise who talks his way into a police office and begins re-examining the case of a man who fell from its window. As he slips from one identity to the next, the officers’ official version of events starts to unravel, and the questions he raises about accountability feel uncomfortably current.
Inside the rehearsal room
Rehearsals are moving at the speed of a very fast train. Props and people are manoeuvring around the room at a great rate, accents are changing faster than fuel costs, and the company’s recognisable police officers and journalists are taking shape like caricatures from an ’80s satirical Sunday night show.
The production team
The show is directed by Laura Parker, with Jacquie Waterfield as Assistant Director, and the team behind the scenes brings plenty of experience.
Stage Manager Marian Baron joins fresh from BDC’s The Importance of Being Earnest, swapping cucumber sandwiches and cake for police files and tepid tea. Surinder Verick is devising costumes clever enough to keep up with the Maniac’s quick-fire disguises. Meanwhile, David Birke and producer Rob Parker, who also handles sound and lighting, are building a stylish, skeletal set: a tired police office where the mystery unfolds, and re-folds itself like an elasticated fitted sheet.
What the critics said
Basden’s adaptation was widely praised on its professional premiere. The Stage noted that among the comic zingers are “weightier concerns about police work and corruption”, while The Guardian called it “a furious but funny broadside against police malpractice… supremely, dazzlingly funny.”
Accidental Death of an Anarchist is at The Place Theatre 17th-21st November