Fringe 2023 Loving The Enemy theSpaceUK 9th August Review
Loving The Enemy at theSpaceUK @ Surgeons’ Hall was unfortunately only on for two performances this year (8 & 9 August), so by the time you read this review you will have missed the chance to see this show, but watch out for it coming again somewhere in the future as it deserves a far larger audience.
What happens when your family leaves another country to settle in a new one and you yourself are born in this new land, Scotland? Are you Scottish (well in the context of this story British), Italian (as your parents are) or a little of both? This dilemma, this search for identity, this question of where your roots, where your loyalties are too, is a question that immigrants and their children have always faced and will probably always face wherever they happen to settle in the world.
In this true story the time is 1940 and Hugo Ricci, played by Lorenzo Novani is in his mind Scottish/British, there is no question in his mind about that, he was born here and has lived here all of the 30 years of his life and is happy working in the family business, he has many friends, and as our story starts, meets by accident a woman who will become his sweetheart and is about to change his life in many ways that he could not imagine.
Here in this one man show, Lorenzo Novani takes to the stage with minimal props and a photograph of the abbey at Monte Cassino. Life is good, but Britain is now at war with Nazi Germany, and Italy, under the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, has still not declared which side his country will support in the war. To Hugo there is no question, Italy will choose the side of freedom. When the announcement is made that Italy has declared war on Britain and France, Hugo’s life, his family’s life and the lives of every Italian who now lives in Britain change overnight.
To prove that he is “British” to himself, to the family of his Scottish girlfriend, and to fight fascism, Hugo enlists in the British army and joins the R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps), but life there is far from what his dreams thought it would be.
At its most basic level this is the story of one man trapped by events taking place in the wider world, but at other levels it is a story that is just as relevant now as it was to Hugo in World War II as friends he and his family once trusted now turn upon the enemy in their midst, and they watch as many Italians (except those exempted for a reason) are rounded up and taken to internment camps. Many are put onto ships and transported overseas, many more endure daily verbal and physical abuse in a country that they thought was their country, their home.
Loving The Enemy is based on the true story of one Italian who never questioned that he was Scottish/British, his name was George De Felice and this story was written by his daughter Hilda, and the care that this production has had taken over it shows at every level. As you enter the theatre, there is a fact sheet and a CD on every seat. The CD “Across the Years” has piano music played by George, some of which is included in the show, and voluntary donations to Cancer Research were being collected at the end of the show.
This production is just a classic example that as long as the fundamental building blocks of a good script and someone who has the skill to bring those words to life on stage and pull an audience into the story (in this case Lorenzo Novani), only the most basic of stage set is required.
You might for the moment have missed “Loving the Enemy”, but the multi-talented Lorenzo Novani is still at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall until 12th August with his own magic and illusionist show “Oracle”.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
What happens when your family leaves another country to settle in a new one and you yourself are born in this new land, Scotland? Are you Scottish (well in the context of this story British), Italian (as your parents are) or a little of both? This dilemma, this search for identity, this question of where your roots, where your loyalties are too, is a question that immigrants and their children have always faced and will probably always face wherever they happen to settle in the world.
In this true story the time is 1940 and Hugo Ricci, played by Lorenzo Novani is in his mind Scottish/British, there is no question in his mind about that, he was born here and has lived here all of the 30 years of his life and is happy working in the family business, he has many friends, and as our story starts, meets by accident a woman who will become his sweetheart and is about to change his life in many ways that he could not imagine.
Here in this one man show, Lorenzo Novani takes to the stage with minimal props and a photograph of the abbey at Monte Cassino. Life is good, but Britain is now at war with Nazi Germany, and Italy, under the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, has still not declared which side his country will support in the war. To Hugo there is no question, Italy will choose the side of freedom. When the announcement is made that Italy has declared war on Britain and France, Hugo’s life, his family’s life and the lives of every Italian who now lives in Britain change overnight.
To prove that he is “British” to himself, to the family of his Scottish girlfriend, and to fight fascism, Hugo enlists in the British army and joins the R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps), but life there is far from what his dreams thought it would be.
At its most basic level this is the story of one man trapped by events taking place in the wider world, but at other levels it is a story that is just as relevant now as it was to Hugo in World War II as friends he and his family once trusted now turn upon the enemy in their midst, and they watch as many Italians (except those exempted for a reason) are rounded up and taken to internment camps. Many are put onto ships and transported overseas, many more endure daily verbal and physical abuse in a country that they thought was their country, their home.
Loving The Enemy is based on the true story of one Italian who never questioned that he was Scottish/British, his name was George De Felice and this story was written by his daughter Hilda, and the care that this production has had taken over it shows at every level. As you enter the theatre, there is a fact sheet and a CD on every seat. The CD “Across the Years” has piano music played by George, some of which is included in the show, and voluntary donations to Cancer Research were being collected at the end of the show.
This production is just a classic example that as long as the fundamental building blocks of a good script and someone who has the skill to bring those words to life on stage and pull an audience into the story (in this case Lorenzo Novani), only the most basic of stage set is required.
You might for the moment have missed “Loving the Enemy”, but the multi-talented Lorenzo Novani is still at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall until 12th August with his own magic and illusionist show “Oracle”.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com