The Decameron is the best comedy of the year (2025)
From the very first episode, Netflix‘shistorical rompThe Decameron is a solid gold comedy banger. None of this “give it three episodes to get going” nonsense; Kathleen Jordan’s highly entertaining, luxuriously produced comedy might be “loosely based” on Giovanni Boccaccio’s hefty 14th century book, but with some superlative writing she has made it entirely her own.
It’s 1348 and the Black Death is ravaging Italy. The canals of Firenze overflow with sore-covered corpses and the nobility are fleeing the city in the hope of outrunning death. A group of posh knobs and their servants arrive at a remote country villa for two weeks of indulgence while the plague does its worst outside the gates.
Like every good houseshare comedy (think Ghosts or Father Ted), this assortment of flawed characters, most harbouring secrets, are forced to share the same space as the fabric of their miniature society crumbles. It’sThe White Lotus in jerkins with a much higher body count.
While the writing gleams like a new blade, the cast is also pretty dazzling. Zosia Mamet from Girls and Veep‘s Tony Hale are arguably the two biggest names on the ticket (perhaps just because they are American), but they’re ably supported by Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Erin in Derry Girls)and the quite outstanding Tanya Reynolds from Sex Education.
It is perhaps pointless to pick favourites when the quality of the cast is this high, but Reynolds steals almost every scene she’s in. Pity the other faces who share the screen with her because you’ll struggle to look anywhere else – her enormous, expressive eyes and long neck give her the appearance of a hyper-vigilant goose (and I do mean that in a good way). She’s fantastic.
At first, we see villa life through the eyes of put-upon servant, Licisca (Reynolds). She arrives at the villa having mislaid her spoiled mistress, Filomena (the also superb Jessica Plummer), and decides to masquerade as her boss. It’s about time she was allowed to put her feet up. If she’s going to hell, she might as well enjoy the ride.
Licisca soon falls for the ludicrously hunky quack doctor Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel) who shoots her lusty glances while his rich, impotent master, Tindaro (a wonderfully repugnant Douggie McMeekin) tries to woo her between bouts of appalling flatulence. He’s an allergy-riven hypochondriac incel who is all too easily exploited by the dastardly doctor. “The poor man has never really had full control over his bowels, but this illness could have him perched over a chamber pot for days. A real poop show,” explains Dioneo.Toilet humour and smut quickly becomes a series trademark and only ramps up from here – that’s before you even get to the shagging.
Meanwhile, Misia (Jackson) arrives fawning over her own virulently awful mistress Pampinea (Mamet). As the latter prepares to marry the villa’s errant Viscount Leonardo, house steward Sirisco (Hale) sets about distracting the new arrivals from the fact their host might be a lot later to the party than they expect. I won’t spoil the joke…
While other comedies lean miserably into tragedy and trauma, Jordan is here simply to make us laugh. Not with lazy one-liners, but pure comedy squeezed from human truth. The social satire of the book - which skewers theupstairs and downstairs of 14th century Italy - is interspersed with lavish dollops of soapy fun and a gag rate that will have you rewinding to catch the ones you missed. From the first 10 minutes, it is crystal clear who everyone is and what they want – the efficiency is breathtaking.
In interviews, Jordan has said the early days of Covid were an inspiration and in particular some “tone deaf” moments where celebrities revealed how totally out of touch they were with the rest of us. Remember Gal Gadot’s cover of “Imagine”? This show is packed with examples of unchecked privilege, the misplaced “same boat” mentality abounds.
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Above all, it’s a spectacular comic exercise in proving that nothing has changed in hundreds of years – you can’t buy your way out of death and we’re all just slaves to fortune in the end. The First World problems of the Middle Ages ring as true no]w as they ever did. As newlywed Panfilo (Karan Gill) explains to his pious, sexually frustrated wife Neifile (Lou Gala) when trying to hurry her pre-holiday confession to get to dinner: “They always serve the best dishes at the welcome dinner. Then it’s just pasta pesto.”
The Decameron is the stand-out comedy hit of the year so far and without a doubt the most fun I’ve had watching TV in a long, long time.
In all truth, coming in without any expectations, Decameron was an entertaining watch! The shenanigans that the group must face, and the randomness of events, make you keep watching throughout the absurdity of it all.
On the other hand, The Decameron has been billed as a miniseries or limited series. Thus, a second season is less likely or unlikely to happen. The Decameron is set in Italy during the Bubonic Plague.
The Decameron is an American medieval black comedy television series created by Kathleen Jordan. It was inspired by the 14th century Italian short-story collection The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. It was released on Netflix on July 25, 2024 to generally favorable reviews.
Starring Zosia Mamet, Tony Hale and more, the show is an anachronistic romp set in 1348 amid the bubonic plague. The show gets its name from Giovanni Boccaccio's “The Decameron." Here's everything to know about the Netflix show, which premiered July 25.
Answer and Explanation: Since its original publication during the 1370s, Giovanni Boccaccio epic has been constantly rewritten by outside forces in order to cut down on its so-called obscene subject matter. The Decameron was especially controversial for its frank discussions of sexuality and eroticism.
While the show does include a number of these themes, it is not an adaptation of the Decameron as a whole. Rather, it is very loosely based on the original frame with some elements from the stories making appearances throughout.
A text that combines historicity and invites personal interpretation can, however, prove to be problematic. The many tales that depict explicit sexual situations and satirize the Church became the subject of much controversy, and they were indeed the same that were ultimately censored.
In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of early Italian prose.
Derived from Greek, the word decameron means ten days and is an allusion to Saint Ambrose's Hexameron, a poetic account of the creation story, Genesis, told over six days.
Where is The Decameron filmed? The exteriors of the extravagant Villa Santa were filmed in Vignanello, Italy, about an hour outside of Rome. During production, the cast and crew primarily lived and worked in Rome, living la dolce vita.
She disinters the head and sets it in a pot of basil, whereon she daily weeps a great while. Her brothers take the pot from her and she dies shortly after. Filomena tells this story, one of the most famous in the Decameron, and the basis of John Keats' narrative poem Isabella, or the Pot of Basil.
There's so much to love about the show that follows. The Decameron is full of ideas about its resonance with contemporary events, but it plays them out without ever tipping its hand too aggressively or betraying its own historical setting for the sake of making a point.
In a number of ways, the Decameron can actually be seen as an early example of or a precursor to Romanticism in its most basic form. Not only is it clearly a celebration of life in the face of a grim reality, but it is a specifically and carefully constructed celebration.
The overall theme of The Decameron is the power of love to survive changes in fortune and to override human intelligence. By love, Boccaccio usually means romantic passion, including lust. He portrays love as a natural force that overcomes individual will. When Boccaccio personifies this force, Love is always a male.
While “The Decameron” may not reach the heights of Mike White's contingency plan turned HBO crown jewel, the series is a tartly funny showcase for a uniformly excellent ensemble. (Executive producer Jenji Kohan, of “Orange Is the New Black,” knows a thing or two about sprawling casts funneled into a single location.)
Introduction: My name is Duane Harber, I am a modern, clever, handsome, fair, agreeable, inexpensive, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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