Dario Fo at 100: a fearless satirist who fused laughter with justice

On his 100th birthday, Dario Fo is celebrated as a figure who fused populist theatre with sharp political satire—forming Nuova Scena, staging Mistero Buffo, and writing Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! which brought protest theatre to wide audiences and earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997. Fo and his wife Franca Rame faced censorship, religious and political hostility, and numerous prosecutions, yet used comedy to confront cruelty, injustice and oppression, making theatre both entertaining and a vehicle for social change.