Rome and Away: Like it? Put a ring on it.
Back in my uni days I studied the satirical poet Juvenal. Here’s one of his characteristically hilarious moaning-about-Romans quips for you: ‘Rome! Fires and collapsing houses, myriad perils, and poets reciting their epics all through August!’ Oh, the laughs we had…
It’s called para-prostochian, i.e. building up expectations then dashing them. Well, it worked last week on stage when I said, ‘Britain has produced some great bands – the Beatles, the Stones, One Direction…I’m joking, I hate the Stones too.’
Mind you, Latin professors are hardly noted for their whacky sense of humour. They’re the only academics who still enjoy chirping ‘Just testing’ when someone points out they made a gaffe. After four generations. Such fun.
Rather more cheering than these Roman tragedies is the news that the Comic Ring Show is returning this week. After a long break for Christmas, when we celebrate a white-haired weirdo breaking into our house to leave our kids sweeties if they’ll empty his sack for him. That’s Santa, not Jimmy Savile. Anyway, Comic Ring Show is a bit like my good self in that it used to come once or twice a week and get a lot of laughs in so doing. This season it’s settling into a Tuesday night slot, leaving Monday for San Lorenzo’s Satiriasi (more on that later) and Wednesday for Cocktail Comedy (more on that before).
Many of the Comic Ring performers graduate from Morinibros, which is Rome’s Comedy School and has been turning clangers into classics for twenty years now – God, they must be tired. And many go on to hit telly in the form of Rome’s ‘Saturday Night Live Show’, which is a show on Friday afternoon pre-recorded in Milan. Translation gap, I guess…
Many also progress to TV’s ‘Seven Show’, which is a kind of Comedy Store for the sober. I used to love it till they started using gorgeous, shameless showgirls – strange coming from the guy who’s lost more semen over Cameron Diaz than Costa Concordia, but I feel there’s a time for clever ironical satirical humour, and a time for ejaculating over Melanie C’s pretty, doe-like eyes.
Point is, the Comic Ring Show runs like an A – Z of Rome’s comedic stars. Or a Z – A of Rome’s policemen. There’s Sergio Viglianese, the guy who can keep the bile and the guile and the style running longer than diarrhea; Marco Capretti, the fellow about whom I’ve been raving since I learnt to spell and about whom I shall continue to rave until the proverbial cows come knocking at my door; Stefano Fabrizio, without whom none of this would be happening and would never have been possible in the first place; Circolo Vizioso, who gets through more costumes than Julian Clary and more gags than Berlusconi’s larder; Andrea Perroni, who’s both disgracefully Italian and disgraced about being Italian anyway, like when he says – no, I’m not going to spoil it. I’m just going to say, you have to have lived here as long as I have to appreciate it.
And to say that finally – amidst Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday – Rome is finally getting into the comedy groove. And becoming the Eternal City instead of the Eternally Shitty.
