It is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control.

Also in 1952 Fo performed Cocoricò with Giustino Durano which featured a 20-minute sketch focusing on the plight of black people in the United States. The title of the original English translation of Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! (Can't Pay? Won't Pay!) has passed into the English language. "
After the war Fo returned to the Brera Academy also taking up architectural studies at the Politecnico di Milano.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi while his targets of the 2010s have included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife actress Franca Rame with whom he lives in Milan.