Charles Hutchinson reviews Death Of An Anarchist

8:57am Thursday 27th November 2008

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THIS summer, Michael Hugo swept all before him as a vacuum cleaner repairman in Deborah McAndrew’s dark comedy Vacuum in moorland Glaisdale.

Actor and playwright reunite in Northern Broadsides’ up-to-the-minute adaptation of Dario Fo’s left-wing political farce from 1970 Italy, and if the part of the master fraudster Maniac was not written for the wiry, soft-footed clowning of Hugo, then this new version was made to measure.

Once you acclimatise to Hugo’s uncanny physical resemblance to Lee Evans, then Evans above, his delirious performance is the comic tour de force of Yorkshire’s autumn.

He emerges, dressed like the Milk Tray Man in the body of Marcel Marceau, from inside a filing cabinet and nimbly serves as Fo’s agent of mayhem and mischief-making in caricatured guises that keep him one step ahead of the corrupt police.

Out goes Fo’s Italy, except for the names of characters, the exaggerated dramatic mannerisms and the camp romantic songs. In comes McAndrew’s spiky, wittily knowing version of West Yorkshire 2008, the credit crunch and abuse of civil liberties, with a nod to DCI Gene Hunt’s Life On Mars (biscuits and all) and the policing methods that downed Jean Charles de Menezez. A yellow Brazil football shirt further emphasises the link.

Hugo’s chameleon Maniac dons ermined-trimmed waistcoat to transform himself into the “Judge”, forensically quizzing Neil Caple’s slimy DCI, Matt Connor’s Keystone Cop constable, Anthony Hunt’s self-obsessed Bertozzo and Craig Rogan’s strutting cock of a cop, Pisani.

The “Judge” is investigating the death of a small-league anarchist, who may have fallen from the cop shop’s fourth-floor window or more likely was helped on his way by the force of the law.

Directed by Conrad Nelson in permanent fifth gear, the screwball first half zips by as madly as the Mad Hatter.

The second allows for more breathing space once Ruth Alexander-Rubin’s investigative journalist, Marie Feletti, sets out her imposing stall.

Hugo, meanwhile, has even more fun as a wooden-legged Scottish forensic scientist.

McAndrew wants her script to be torn up straight after this tour: a short life for her Death, but a revitalising one that should urge other writers to have a go at updating Fo.

Death Of An Anarchist, Northern Broadsides, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Saturday. Box office: 01723 370541.