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Worlds Apart
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I want to live in Bologna, but still hop back to London once a month; I want to feast on succulent roast beef with Yorkshire pudding one Sunday and delight in tortelloni alla zucca the next; I want to earn a whopping great salary in sterling and spend it in the brimming boutiques of Bologna; I want the intimacy and beauty of a medieval town with the vibrancy and diversity of a metropolis… and who doesn't want the best of both worlds?
The latest lavish BBC production tempts us with this mouth-watering dream. Filmed on location in Bologna and London, Best of Both Worlds will be shown early 2001 in the UK as a three part mini-series and potentially at a screening in Bologna during the same period. Diane, happily married to British restaurateur husband with a son, works part-time as an air hostess on the London-Bologna shuttle flight. She enjoys her independence, but is by no means casting a roving eye along the aisles each time she hits 30,000 feet. During one flight a dashing passenger asks her for a favour: to pretend to be his wife that evening to help clinch a business deal. No strings attached, no extra services, simply an unusual adventure in Bologna; and this guy Mark is friendly, half-Italian, half-Scottish so shares Diane's appreciation of the two cultures. The evening is a success: Mark pulls off his finance deal… and pulls her into bed. Having never mentioned the small detail of English hubby back home, Diane becomes sucked into an intense affair and eventually agrees to marry Mark. So to two jobs, two cities and two cultures Diane now adds two husbands, two houses and two completely separate lives. She manages to juggle them fairly successfully until her UK husband plans a romantic surprise for her in Italy….
So Bologna has been graced with a BBC production. For a city that has so often been passed over in favour of her more flamboyant sisters so nearby, this is a great accolade and sign that Bologna is finally being noticed as the stunning Cinderella that she is. The screenwriter (Paul Abbott of Cracker and Clocking Off fame) and director David Richards came to Italy to find their perfect city for Best of Both Worlds. After eyeing up Milan, toying with Rome, flirting with Florence, they decided that Bologna offered the best backdrop for the production, providing the classical Italian look of a city without the distracting images of Brunelleschi's Duomo, or the hackneyed side- streets of Trastevere. Rosie Cavaliero, an English actress who plays Mark's cousin, explains, 'When they came to Bologna they just fell in love with it. Bologna is a cameraman's dream - and it's so undiscovered, so fresh.'
And from Rosie's descriptions, the week's filming in July was a total ball - a love affair between the Italian style of working and the British. 'The Italians were all generous, so glamorous. There was a very good atmosphere and we all had lots of laughs.' The British cast and crew were obsessed with making the most of the sales, assailing via Indipendenza to grab the bargains, to the extent of the make-up artist sending a driver off to Prada to pick up a handbag that she just had to have. The Italians were no less affected by the spark of the two cultures meeting. Alfredo Caruso, a Bolognese actor/director who plays a rich, benestante friend of Mark's (complete with gorgeous villa up in the colli) enthuses about the experience: 'I have never ever seen a production so well organised. They had even brought over their own restaurant lorry from Britain to provide meals on set. And they treat actors so well. In Italy actors are nothing special, but David (the director) came over at the end of each scene and personally thanked each one of us.'
No doubting the instinctive attraction between Italians and the British then. The sea of bulging Invicta ruck-sacks on the Tube testify to the Italian obsession with London while there's no end of artistically inclined, Dante-quoting ex-pats seeking their room-with-a-view dream in various corners of the peninsula. However Best of Both Worlds pushes the interest one step further: what we're dealing with here is not simply a woman who's fallen in love with Italy, but a woman whose love for Italy (or more accurately for an Italian) turns her into a lying, scheming bigamist. Is this turning the Anglo-Italian romance into a sordid affair?
Predictably, or stereotypically, the British reaction to the drama differs slightly from the Italian. 'Diane's a generous, warm, funny character,' explains Rosie, 'and very up-front. The situation just gets out of control and spirals without her planning it. The viewer immediately warms to her but you're aware that she's acting appallingly.' Alfredo instead is very nonplussed. 'A double life? I think it's fairly normal. Now if she had five different lives….' Affairs? All part and parcel of the intricately woven tapestry of life. This live-and-let-live mentality contrasts strikingly with the continued British propensity to sweep everything under the carpet, declaring that these things never happen to us, darling. However, the increasing acceptance of adultery in British society - as more and more of our royals and celebs unashamedly fail to keep their pants on - has paved the way for Diane's adventure which is likely to spark off very different reactions.
Whether you catch the series back in Britain, or the Film Commission manages to organise a Bolognese screening, it'll be a rare treat to gaze at Piazza Maggiore on the silver screen, see the happily married couple trip down those impossible Palazzo d'Accursio stairs, sip aperativi in Caffè Mamolo and wander under the porticoes in the bright summer sunshine. And flying on the London-Bologna flight will never be the same again…. Could that sweet smile of the Go airhostess offering the chicken salad on tomato ciabatta be hiding a tangled web of deceit, lies and mobile phones as she swings from hardy English hubby to emotional marito every week? I don't doubt it.
Best of Both Worlds
To be screened by the BBC in UK at the beginning of 2001
For information about the probable screening of the production in Bologna, contact the Film Commission: 051 291 2519
Ella Carpenter
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