ANOTHER season of Tucci in Italy (all episodes streaming on Disney+) enabled me to indulge my enduring affection for short, Italian men (I am married to one, after all) and for the tastiest, most beautiful country on earth. Sorry, England! I adore you, too, but when it comes to culinary delights — and the weather — Italy wins every time.
The ever-stylish actor Stanley Tucci is back, eating, exclaiming, and lip-smacking his way through all the places he’s not visited so far. The series begins with a trip to Campania and its capital, Naples, which has far more to recommend it than just pizza. This famously loud city, defined for so long as a hotbed of organised crime, and with a history of hardship, is enjoying something of a second renaissance. It has an impressive energy, and, like the rest of Italy, is home to fiercely partisan people who defend their region with vigour. “We are at war with Emilia-Romagna,” a Neapolitan chef said as he stuffed a pepper with ricotta. “We stuff everything.”
This brought back memories of the time that I made the mistake of trying to order a Coke at a bar in Lecce, only to be firmly told, “We only sell Puglian products,” reflecting a defiant provincialism that is unimaginable in the UK. Each region in Italy has a distinctive character, and I find Italians’ unapologetic national pride, expressed through food, inspiring. Campania is a region that exists in the shadow of Vesuvius. There is an acknowledgement there of the fine balance between life and death.
This is a great series for lovers of food and travel, exploring the complex connections between land and people. Tucci says that the best way to understand a country is through its food. I can’t wait for him to explore England through our pies and chips.
The Future with Hannah Fry (BBC2, Wednesday) is a six-part series presented by this engaging mathematician, exploring a range of contemporary dilemmas, including privacy and data, clean energy, and rewilding. Episode One raises the possibility of a 150-year-old life, and asks whether it might be possible for humans to extend their biological clocks. How might we do this — and, crucially, would we even want to?
Ageing and the concept of defying time are pet topics of mine; so I would have appreciated a six-part series on this question alone. This is more a shallow dip than a deep dive into an immensely complex area. Professor Fry, who studies patterns in human behaviour, meets a bio-hacking influencer, an epigenetics scientist, and a man who discusses the Japanese concept of ikigai: purpose and meaning. Do we want to live long, or just to live well? I know what I would choose.