[In Accidental Death of an Anarchist] Fo's method is to manoeuvre the police into becoming increasingly desperate with their own verbal petards. Was the suspect so badly bullied that he committed suicide? No, he wasn't, it was a very good humoured interrogation. Did he jump out of the window from sheer happiness, then? Well, no, not exactly…. So the questions continue until the truth is blurted out: Pinelli was pushed.

It is a sombre conclusion. An atrocity has been committed, and one that we ourselves can hardly dismiss as a hot-blooded Mediterranean aberration…. And yet the inquisitor is a blend of trickster and clown, whose iconoclastic glee and eccentric camouflage (at one point, believe it or not, Long John Silver minus only the parrot) both proclaim his origins as the zanni of Italian commedia dell'arte; the police are strutting or tumbling grotesques, a ripe bunch of gorgonzola Cheeses...