Ah Italia – the food, the architecture, the art, the music, the countryside, the passegiata, the beautiful people, the fashion, the weather and................oh dear, the TV! Italian TV is something else.
It is interesting to see the popular TV culture of different countries. French TV has lots of serious, but very boring, current affairs programmes but some fantastic cinema. German TV at the moment is wall to wall Fasching – Carnival, which is a spectacle unlike any other. Imagine the Lyons Club joined with the WI all in fancy dress holding a highly ritualised party with everyone performing their party-pieces............on TV.......every night for a fortnight. Mmm – an acquired taste.
Karneval in Germany
Italian TV has a very different flavour. Mainly, the TV here is wall to wall game shows, which are on nightly. They are strictly formulaic – a portly and resolutely jolly late-middle-aged host, an hostess who is past her prime but valiantly employing every artificial means to fight the fact, and very scantily-clad young dancing girly performing gratuitous cheeky routines at regular intervals. These girls are popular Italian heroines and every woman in Italy, apparently, wants to be them. I would have thought the majority of the Italian female populace would instead have banded together and driven every one of these unfeasibly perfect young ladies into the Mediterranean by now. But no, this is evening entertainment.
Raffaella Ficostachetto, dancing girl on 'Prendere o Laschiare'- family entertainment Italian Style
The other staple is the talent show. Stars and their protégées, dancing stars (not coming close to the standard of the UK 'Stricly Come Dancing') team-talent competitions, children's song fests – every group catered for in one or other of the huge, over produced and very long (3.5hrs plus!) spectaculars over the weekends.
A regular guest on both types of show is il principe Emanuele Filiberto. This handsomely named, and handsomely turned out young man is, believe it or not, the heir apparent to the, now defunct throne, of Italy. The Italian monarchy was evicted in 1945 and until 2002 the male line of the Savoy family were forbidden by law to set foot on Italian soil. Emanuele Filiberto however has found a unique way to bring the monarchy back into the affections of the people. He has appeared on (and won) the Italian Dance with the Stars, and is regular 'straight man' to a popular TV host. He seems to be willing to appear on TV at the drop of a hat, in any silly costume or daft skit. He makes It's a Royal Knockout look like a grave State Occasion.
Il Principe Emanuele Filliberto on 'Ballando con le Stelle'
You can't help admire him though. Everyone knows who he is. The gossip columns are full of his antics. He is probably the most popular king-that-will-never-be in history. Certainly the most entertaining.
The interesting thing to me about this orgy of dubious-taste but unmissable TV is the pure enjoyment and love of song. On all of these talent shows the emphasis is firmly on shared entertainment and not, like the UK's talent bloodbaths, on the destruction of the hopeful. There are no overblown 'that was the best performance I've ever heard' from insincere judges, and no stringing out of the final verdict placing unbearable tension on the contestants.
When one contestant is singing, all the others (and the hosts) sing along in the background, genuinely enjoying the event. On the children's talent show, Io canto (hosted by the Italian version of Terry Wogan - the housewife's choice Gerry Scotti) small children compete alongside older children in a truly supportive and enjoyable atmosphere. And even the youngest can really put across a song in the most mature way.
They seem unaffected by the stage-school manner which so easily sanitises children in the UK and US and instead appear to be genuinely comfortable with performing and totally convinced with the text. Also, far from being dressed and made up in inappropriate adult attire as mini 'Brittneys' or 'Whitneys' they are presented in their Sunday best, as if for a visit to which their elderly Grandmother. Rather lovely to see kids dressed as kids, unsophisticated but totally at home with the adult world too.
'io canto' - a phenomenon with child performers
Frankly at home I would rather stick pins in my eyes than watch a 3.5 hour children's talent competition, but I can't wait for Saturday night for the next Io canto.
It points out what I have mentioned in earlier blogs – the very palpable enjoyment of life that pervades the culture here. And it is a desire which is not limited to the self or even the family, but takes in everyone around them.
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