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Best of 2018: Performance
by SIMON PARSONS
Revengeful: Anya Chalotra in The Village [Alastair Muir]

UNQUESTIONABLY, a highlight of the theatrical year was unearthed in the damp Underbelly vaults below the central library at the Edinburgh fringe festival.

Rhum and Clay’s updated production of Dario Fo’s twisted morality play Mistero Buffo transforms the mediaeval jongleur to a zero-hours Deliveroo worker, played by Julian Spooner.

Originally denounced by the Vatican as "the most blasphemous show in the history of television," Fo’s controversial drama is a series of biblically inspired monologues, yet, in the hands of Spooner, over 100 characters take to the stage from a hysterical, manic and over-commercialised resurrection of Lazarus to a profoundly disturbing portrayal of Christ unwilling to be saved from his iconic crucifixion.

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