Entertainment
Tom Basden explains why now is the right time to adapt a 53 year old Italian play satirising the police-Ashley Davies-Entertainment – Metro
‘We can put this story in front of people and we don’t have to explain it.’
Because now audiences know who the satirical targets are (Picture: Helen Murray)
When Tom Basden was first approached to adapt Accidental Death Of An Anarchist almost ten years ago, there was a small problem. He’d long been a fan of this angry and important play that also happens to be very funny, but something was making him anxious.
When first staged in Italy more than half a century ago, Dario Fo’s play had audiences who knew immediately what the playwright was satirising.
The story is based on a real-life case in 1969 when an anarchist fell to his death from the window of a Milan police station. It was still raw at the time and people were enraged and probably frightened.
Writing any sort of satire when you feel the need to devote time to describing the rotten power system you’re artfully sending up is almost impossible. But, blimey, that’s all changed over the past few years, thanks to the recent increase in exposures of institutional corruption and abuses of power within certain police organisations.
Now, audiences in this country know who the satirical targets are and, if they’ve been paying attention to the news, they’ll be angry, too.
‘I feel like this is the right time for this,’ says Tom, best known to many for writing and performing in Plebs and Here We Go, as well as starring in Ricky Gervais’s After Life.
‘It’s right that it’s taken this long because, finally, this is a moment when we can put this story in front of people and we don’t have to explain it.
‘We don’t have to explain why it’s serious, what the police have been doing and why we’re angry about it. Everybody knows and everyone’s energised by the story and demanding that things are done differently.’
Tom says he honoured the original but changing it quite a lot (Picture: Helen Murray)
The setting has been changed to a world audiences can easily recognise (Picture: Helen Murray)
When his version of Anarchist was first put on this year – at the Lyric in Hammersmith and the Crucible in Sheffield – he’d already adapted it to make it ‘feel fresh and immediate’. It still looks at the Milan case and contains the brilliant material from the original play, but Tom wanted to set it all in London to root it within a world that audiences could more easily recognise. This brings to the fore not only problems with the police that we’re becoming more aware of, but those happening in the world around us.
Now that the play, which stars Tony Gardner and Bafta winner Daniel Rigby, is transferring to London’s West End, Tom has been making even more updates.
‘It’s not just about the topicality – it’s also about cultural ideas and trends,’ he says.
‘Comedy dates very quickly. To recreate what was funny about something, particularly something that’s 50-odd years old, you do have to reimagine a fair bit of it, otherwise it becomes a museum piece. I was very keen, weirdly, to honour the original as best I could by changing it quite a lot.’
Finding humour in this dark subject is an interesting exercise. As someone who knows and understands the power of comedy more than most, Tom was adamant about avoiding making the play look po-faced.
‘You want people to watch it with a bit of abandon, to enjoy the comedy and be sucked into the world of it and the ridiculous farcical nature of it. And then when they’re hit with things that are real and urgent and shocking, it just knocks the wind out of them momentarily.
The update still looks at the Milan case and contains material from the original play (Picture: Helen Murray)
Tom was adamant about avoiding making the play look po-faced (Credits: Helen Murray)
‘I think that’s what Dario Fo was doing with his original play and that’s what I’m trying to do with this, but it’s very hard because people have to really buy into the comedy, to buy into the farce. They almost have to forget they’re watching something that has its talons in the real world, so when they’re reminded of that, it’s a little bit shocking.
‘I wanted to make sure I got that right because that’s sort of the point of the play. If people feel like it’s too preachy or, conversely, too lightweight and farcical and there’s no traction there with the real world, then the balance isn’t right. But I’m very proud of where we’ve got to.’
Tom’s next project is a film called One For The Money, starring himself, Carey Mulligan and Tim Key, in which a lottery winner invites his favourite musician to his island. He and Tim have worked together for years, starting in the sketch group, Cowards, which also comprised Stefan Golaszewski – who went on to write Him & Her and Mum – and Lloyd Woolf.
Tom also starts filming the second series of Here We Go in September and has dozens, if not hundreds, of other ideas simmering. Given that he’s both a prolific and talented writer, and a man who can’t stand the idea of doing nothing, you know something compelling will always be just round the corner.
Jun 12-Sep 9, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, anarchistwestend.com
MORE : Disabled dogs and dick pics: How Colin from Accounts became the BBC’s best word-of-mouth hit
Entertainment – MetroRead More
