With British political comedy in hibernation, we must turn to Italy to be reminded of the sharp sensations satire can provoke. Serate Bastarde, or Bastard Nights, is a tragicomic cabaret performed by three Italian women who fuse the spirits of Dario Fo and Chris Morris. In its righteous rage, and in the audacious lengths to which it goes to incriminate the modern world, it's unlike any other comedy show on the fringe.
I use the word comedy loosely. Several scenes are played straight, including a monologue about an old woman whose son incinerates a so-called "Paki" tramp, delivered with fierce conviction by Silvia Gallerano. And there's never any doubting the moral gravity that underpins even the silliest sketches. In its unselfconsciousness about being serious-minded, the show is very un-British, as is the vociferousness of its agitprop attack. Take the video Fez and the City, which relocates the adventures of Carrie Bradshaw et al to Afghanistan, and swaddles them in burqas – to obvious but withering effect.
Then there's the rant, by director/performer Renata Ciaravino, about the lifestyle options available to the 21st-century leftie. (Raising goats in Tuscany doesn't really appeal.) But that tirade, and everything else in the show, pales next to two show-stopping routines. The first skewers the X-Factor/beauty pageant culture, by imagining a world in which burns victims are considered the apex of sexy. (Performer Carmen Pellegrinelli, flouncing around in skimpy bikini, herself has third-degree burns.) The second sees the trio distribute sachets of Silvio Berlusconi's sperm, then strip to bathe in a dinghy full of the stuff, panting "look at me, Silvio" as they splash around. It's dizzyingly bizarre, and a reminder of how thrilling political satire can be when its proponents really let rip.
