Anarchists and Art
Accidental Death of an Anarchist An angry satire within a breakneck speed farce, at the interval I felt a bit like I had been battered to submission by words and a restorative ice cream was definitely required. The play opens with 'The Maniac' (Daniel Rigby) protesting his innocence to a policeman (Mark Hadfield) due to insanity and brandishes his certificate to prove it. The hour and fifty minutes is a whirlwind tearing through the state of justice, passing with barely a glance at some awful statistics. There are references to police brutality and well known cases of incompetence, coverup and downright criminality from Stephen Lawrence, via undercover officers to Sarah Everard, not forgetting the Public Order Bill, dodgy Home Secretaries and appalling dismissal and conviction rates for police misconduct. So far so good. And I loved that the music in the interval included Police and Thieves and other songs about misbehaving police. The script, written by To...