Accidental Death of an Anarchist review: Daniel Rigby is astonishing in satire that takes aim at the London Met

Tom Basden’s darkly comic adaptation of Dario Fo’s classic farce is one of the most daring and original shows to arrive in the West End in recent memory

Daniel Rigby in ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ (Helen Murray)

Sleeper hits aren’t usually this noisy. After well-received runs at the Sheffield Crucible and the Lyric Hammersmith, Tom Basden’s gloriously unruly adaptation of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist is careering into the Theatre Royal Haymarket. In director Daniel Raggett’s high-octane production, Daniel Rigby gives an astonishing performance, combining rapid-fire delivery with an instant rapport with the audience. Factor in a sharp script that drips with merciless satire, and what you have is the most daring and original show to arrive in the West End in recent memory.

Actor and writer Basden, whose BBC sitcom Here We Go was one of last year’s best new comedies, has brought Italian playwright Fo’s classic play blisteringly up to date. The mysterious – and obviously suspicious – death of a man in police custody comes under scrutiny of “The Maniac”, played by Rigby. Carrying a Liberty bag full of props and speaking at 100 miles per hour, he sets chaos in motion when he arrives at police headquarters. Here, he starts to deploy a number of weird disguises in order to ask annoying questions. In this deliciously meta script, he believes he’s in a play, with Rigby constantly breaking the fourth wall with mischievous relish. Other institutions are ripe for mockery too, from the media (Ruby Thomas is very funny as a privileged young journalist who loves flower markets in Peckham) to theatre itself.

The Maniac discovers that a new inquiry has begun into the inquiry into the “accidental death of an anarchist”, when a man fell from a fourth-floor window after police questioning. (“Inquiries into inquiries into inquiries” is a characteristic of British life lampooned by the Maniac.) The officers insist the man was overcome by “raptus” – a sudden suicidal impulse – and Tony Gardner, Tom Andrews, Ro Kumar and Mark Hadfield are brilliant as a gang of useless knucklehead coppers, exasperated and bewildered by attempts to drag police culture into the 21st century. “I never posted anything in the WhatsApp group. I actually like Meghan Markle!” one insists.

But the main source of comedy resolves around the officers’ increasingly desperate attempts to contrive a story that relieves them of any culpability. Basden’s sleight of hand is to make the form crucial to the message: credulity-stretching cover-ups begin to resemble absurdist farce. Throughout, the script treads a sophisticated line between comedy and polemic without ever feeling like a lecture. Sarah Everard and Stephen Lawrence are mentioned; the shadow of the recent Casey report, which found the Met to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic, hangs heavy. “It’s like when us coppers take selfies with murder victims – it’s classic banter!” the Maniac says, and the audience’s laughter begins to curdle.

The cast in the unruly Dario Fo adaptation (Helen Murray)

But none of this would work so well without Rigby’s phenomenal central performance, which is exhausting to watch, a slick steam engine charging through the entire thing. Occasionally, it goes so fast you think it might go off the rails – but it never does. Talking at lightning speed, wringing the physical comedy out of every moment, Rigby – who won a shock Bafta over Benedict Cumberbatch and Matt Smith in 2011 – reminds us that he is a criminally underrated comedy star. A performance like this is a rare gem, not to be missed in a deliriously entertaining and politically urgent show that hits all its targets with cool, comic precision.

Until 9 September