Ahead of the shows taking place on 30 November and 1 December at the Musical Theater in Basel and in Lugano on 24 February 2024, we had a chat with Amedeo, since Pio was busy with rehearsals. The interview begins with a quip from Amedeo, who tells me that I am missing nothing if Pio is not there, because he is enough on his own. Obviously this is a well established artistic duo and Amedeo speaks on behalf of both.
So, how are you? “We are well. It is a good moment and fortunately it has been for a while. Playing live, always meeting new people, gives you a good dose of adrenaline all the time and that satisfies us. Seeing how the audience reacts to this or that gag is always a great satisfaction. Without a doubt, playing live is the finest thing we do.”
This is a show you postponed because of the pandemic but, in the meantime, you worked a lot on television and the audience has grown even fonder of you. Is that right? “Exactly, we are getting a huge amount of approval and we realise we are reaping what we sowed over the years. We do not have a precise target audience. In the crowd there is the 18-year-old boy and the 65-year-old lady, and that is significant, because giving comedy to such a broad audience is certainly stimulating. Emigratis was for a younger audience, Felicissima sera for a more adult one, but then in the theatre you gather a mixed audience.”
So how did you plan to run these felicissime serate, first in Basel for an audience of Italian emigrants and then in Lugano, with a mix of Italians and Italian-speaking Swiss? Will there be differences in approach? “Yes, there will be differences. The show has a very precise structure, but we will clearly change something along the way when we notice that the jokes work a little better, and the pace picks up depending on the audience in front of you.”
So, when improvising, can you be described as a pair of artists who work perfectly together and are in tune? “Yes, every evening we have our foundations, but we adapt to the audience's reaction, and then we have to enjoy ourselves, otherwise we would not manage to do so many dates with the same jokes every night. To make people laugh, we have to be the ones enjoying ourselves first. Sometimes he does not tell me things and sometimes I do not tell him, and we say them to each other straight on stage, creating the right spontaneity in the jokes. We also improvise with the audience and of course you never know what may come out of it or happen.”
So the audience is a resource of the show? “Certainly, interacting with the spectators makes them feel part of the show, part of our comedy. Also to vary things, to compare notes and to understand what people like and what the spectator expects from us. Especially in the first part we also try to come down from the stage as a social experiment, and it is always a spontaneous bit of fun that everyone enjoys.”
What is the show based on? “We have 5 live musicians and we will sing according to the gags that come before or after the sketches. There will be monologues and then we came up with a projection of Italy in 2036 where Pio and I are in a prison cell in City life in Milan, with the voice of Chiara Ferragni giving orders: in short, an ironic hyperbole of what could happen.”
Certainly an interesting vision. Going back to the TV show “Felicissima sera”, you invited a great many high-profile guests, but was there anyone with whom the feeling was more intense? “Usually those who come on our show already know they have to put themselves on the line. Above all the singers, in Italy, go where they know there is a sort of ‘confort zone’ in which no awkward questions are asked. All our guests, with whom we spoke before organising things, proved open to accepting an evening where you do not have to do the promotional number or the plug. You come because you want to have fun with us. And it worked with everyone. We even managed to get sacred monsters like Baglioni or Venditti to enjoy themselves. The magic happens.”
For those who did not accept the invitation, is it a question of political correctness? “I believe every artist has their own sensitivity and they probably had the feeling of being put in difficulty or that we would ask improper questions, but in reality we always try to put the guest at ease and we try to be intellectually honest.”
Was the best experience, the peak you reached, appearing as guests at Sanremo? “It was a decisive crossroads in making us known to the wider public. We experienced Sanremo with a certain ingenuousness and without performance anxiety, but every stage is important. Mediaset gave us the trust to carry a show on our own and for any artist that is no small achievement.”
When you started your career, was there someone you aspired to? “Look, there was a comic duo in Puglia, ‘Toti e Tata’, which then broke up, that we watched as children and took as our benchmark. Then of course we would be delighted to do at least 1/5 of what Franco and Ciccio did.”
Thank you Amedeo… at this point the only wish we can make is that you have a long career of artistic symbiosis!
Pio e Amedeo
LIVE
Thursday 30 November 2023, 8.30 pm
Musical Theater, Basel
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Friday 1 December 2023, 8.30 pm
Musical Theater, Basel
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Saturday 24 February 2023, 8.30 pm
Palazzo dei Congressi, Lugano
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