Fiorello: You have not yet all. I still have things to offer

The meeting with the personality of Saturday evenings turns into an opportunity for a performance full of songs, impressions and gags. 

Luttazzi is right:  I don't do political satire but a good old teasing: after all, I come for the vacation resorts.

By Gino Castaldo

ROME-The show goes on, always.  Even at 9:30 am, time for interviews at the Teatro delle Vittorie.  To enter the offices we are forced to go through a narrow side street and one can hear a voice that could very well be that of Mario Merola singing songs of a prison inmate.  Is it possible?  On the first floor the window is protected by a fence, and with his head through it we notice Fiorello singing as loud as he can and calls for his mother, in a pure Neapolitan style.  From the windows across the street a girls studying for a law exam looks out and asks "what are you doing?".  Precisely.  What on earth is Fiorello doing at this hour, already overly excited? "I can't help it.  The morning I woke up at a quarter to seven.  I always get up early.  Even in the summer, if I am on vacation".  

Fiorello shifts a few gears upwards and runs us over with his non stop show.  He sings, does impressions, recites poetry by memory.  There are displays with articles cut out of newspapers and photos:  "Did you see Stallone?  To the foreign guests we show tapes  of other meetings and Stallone saw those of me playing with Dustin Hoffman and Lionel Richie, and by the time they get here they already say: mannaggia... And then this name that I have they all remember it. Fiorello to them is Fiorello La Guardia.  And right away they all call me Fiorelllou... 

Let's try to enter the waves.  Fiorello, how do you feel being in this organization when seen from the outside it seems that you are at war with everyone?
"I feel perfectly comfortable here and I look at things from a comedic standpoint, I feel this war around me, I stay here and say waw! And behind the scenes I imagine everyone is trying to kill everyone else.".

 Do you ever get reprimanded for a particularly nasty comment?
"Oh, surely, like when I said the "not so tall one" referring to the Prime Minister, something happened then.  They told me I could not do that, I said that was not true, that politicians cannot be mentioned and in particular one could not do political speeches.  Luttazzi is right, in every interview he mentions my name to explain the difference between political satire and a good old teasing and making fun.  And I don't feel stupid because of this; the fact is that each person must do his thing, and my background is from the tourist resorts and I can't really stretch farther than that, but I cannot accept the fact that if I say that a politician is bald, that this is a violation of the rules. Something always come back to me, but I think it is not the politicians themselves but their assistants.  Sirchia, when they told him of the sketch on smoking was very upset, but then he saw it himself and wound up calling me to tell me it was ok.  After all, I cannot wait for some of these things to happen to me.  If I tell a joke nobody laughs, it's just not my thing, and I have to talk about things that affect me.  For example, in the morning I always go out wearing my headphones to listen to those pieces I need to memorize.  The doorman every morning greets me and I, even if I cannot hear what he says, always reply:  Hi Velio, everything is fine!  After three days he finally came up to my home and told my wife that it has been three days that I have told your husband that he owes money for the rent and he ignores me.  

Is that how the gags come about?
"Sometimes.  I saw Paola Cortellesi last Saturday afternoon.  We didn't know what to do so I asked her about her show, what kind of audience numbers she is getting.  She says eleven, twelve, how stressful.  You don't want to think about it but then they call you in the morning and you pretend everything is fine and then feel like stabbing yourself as soon as you hang up.  Well, that is the role of the authors, they were looking at us and said:  great, just like that, continue and then little by little the skit came about".  

A great deal of your show has a strong musical vein.  In one sense music saved your life, right?
"Absolutely and sometimes I try to be critical of myself, I thought that Cocciante would be tiring, and then at the next show I want to say "enough with the Gobbo of Notre Dame, and Cocciante got upset because it's not fair to blame always the gobbo, Baldini will insist and I will say no and then I will sing like Cocciante" Are you sure?  "Well, I don't know if I can resist, but we'll see" 

But at the very least you should invite Cocciante...
"I don't know.  And besides, I am not sure he would even come and it is up to them. Califano called me because he had fun and I invited him again.  But it is true that I have been singing since the days at the resorts, the only thing was that I had not manage to find a way to channel these skills. On television at the beginning you have to adapt to what is already there.  I started at Deejay Television, on Italia 1, but back then at Radio Deejay they had a sniper and as soon as they would spot an Italian singer, even if he was there by mistake, they would shoot on sight.  I was from the resorts and was singing "Felicita`", and therefore limited myself to say "and now here is...", but then, while they changed the reel, I would spend four or five minutes entertaining the audience, I would tell jokes and then, once back on the air, I would go back to just presenting "and now here is Michael Jackson".  I was simply just too famous for just doing things while we were off the air, everything was upside down.  On the air I would just say "and now here is..." and off the air I made people laugh.  Now everything is ok and I do fun stuff." 

If you are always doing impressions, don't you risk to be de-personalized? A few years ago at Sanremo you tried to be just another singer.  Everyone thought you would win but you kept saying no for good luck...
"It was just like you say, and what I feared actually happened.  But I don't let it bother me.  Lately I have been asked to make records, but I simply say that I have finally found what I wanted to do and I am no longer looking for something.  At Sanremo I was not a singer, I was a personality known for karaoke, I was part of a marketing effort, but I was unaware, I didn't have enough experience, I was managed while today I manage myself.  They tell me to record original songs but I always refuse:  I am a showman and one who interprets songs. Frankly, I would love to record an album and I am about to receive a set of songs and I want to record live all the songs from the show.  I would like to do a double-album with 40 songs:  Romagna mia, La solitudine, Every breath you take but in a swing version, and much more." 

What's next for television?
"A show where I can have even more freedom. I still have a ten to twenty percent in me that I know I can express, and every now and then it comes out, but I want to let loose a bit more. In theatre I can do that, there is a piece on taboos that I keep postponing from one episode of the show to the other, I speak about fecies, a woman's period, masturbation.  I think it is crazy to put censorship on things that our Lord has given to us.  I did not invent poop just like masturbation.  After all, what is wrong with that, it's just a way to be with ourselves.  Let's take the animals that are not so blessed:  what do they do?  And let's not even talk about dinosaurs. What could T.Rex do with those short arms? 

When you go on live, what do you think about?
"I seem to be quite calm, but it is not true.  Actually, after ten minutes I get over it, but if you saw me first you would see someone who paces like a madman, I bite things, I take a bottle of Fiori di Bach for which you need fifteen drops but I drink the whole thing"  

The interview ends and the phone rings.  It's minister Sirchia again. The show goes on, day and night.

(Aprile 28, 2004)