Queen's Hall Theatre Club

Imagine Line of Duty written by Monty Python, only with sharper politics and a clown in the lead. Dario Fo’s farce—reborn for the age of fake news, police spin, and WhatsApp leaks—skewers authority with slapstick, wordplay, and a plot that trips over itself like a detective chasing his own shoelaces.

A "Maniac" (part trickster, part stand-up comic, part chaos agent) infiltrates a police station after a suspicious "accidental" death in custody. Armed with disguises, quickfire wit, and a talent for improvisation, he ties the officers in knots, exposing their lies faster than they can invent new ones. The modern staging updates the references: instead of dusty dossiers, we get headlines ripped from today’s scandals—racism, corruption, cover-ups—proving Fo’s satire is depressingly evergreen.

By the end, you’re left laughing and wincing in equal measure. The play holds a funhouse mirror to power: ridiculous, distorted, but recognisably true. The joke, as always, is that the absurd isn’t confined to the stage—it’s in the nightly news.