Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester
An updated version of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s 1974 satire speaks to our times but also suffers from a lack of cohesion
It is quite startling to witness just how relevant Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s 1974 farce is today. The Italian Nobel prize winner’s play has been translated and updated by Australian writer Marieke Hardy. The detail of the piece, with discussions of rising food prices, teachers using food banks, striking NHS staff and people being told to “get used to being poorer” is Hardy’s, but the scaffolding is Fo and Rame’s.
The play tells the story of housewives revolting over food prices and stealing from a supermarket, with events spiralling out of control. We meet Antonia, played by Samantha Power, in full flow having arrived straight from purloining the weekly grocery shop and wondering how to hide her bounty from husband, morally upright union man Giovanni (Roger Morlidge).
At the Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester, until 10 June
