S01E03 Luca Cupani, Italian speaker - From Bologna, Italy 🇮🇹

The effortlessly charming and cultured Italian comic Luca Cupani, who at some point in his life was more fluent in Latin and in ancient Greek than in English, brought the podcast to a new intellectual level that really challenged your host Kuan-wen to keep up. Renaissance paintings and modern art were casually referenced to and our guest this episode randomly threw away proper Latin phrases rather than made-up Harry Potter words "Expelliarmus!". There was even talks of "cassettes"

Meanwhile, Kuan-wen tried to instill the idea of doing exorcism as a side business in Luca's head and banged on and on about pasta.

Luca shared how he was told he looked more Polish or English than Italian, that the marketing people think real Italians are TOO Italian, how he ultimately achieved English fluency - despite the accent - in his adult life after receiving poorly designed English lessons in middle school. There was also an interesting discussion on Italian comedy punters.

-------------------------------

Follow Kuan-wen on Instagram or Twitter

---------------------------------

Episode timeline

00:38 Intro

03:03 Luca's Italian accent as a result of old-fashioned "All grammar, little conversation" teaching

04:31 Luca being more fluent in Latin and ancient Greek

05:31 UK punters asking Luca to "drop" his accent

07:09 Where Luca's blue eyes come from

08:30 Notion of how an Italian should look like (10;38 East Asians looking like characters in Mulan more likely to be cast)

12:38 Luca used to apologise for his accent early on in his comedy career

16:09 Pre-conditioned perspectives; what (some) comedy reviewers expect from foreign comics

18:35 A short discussion that is all about PASTA

19:53 The Italian test: Italians giving so much fuss about pasta (and good food!)

21:10 Differences between Luca performing in English and in Italian

23:17 Differences between UK and Italian comedy audiences

26:30 How Luca re-learned English himself properly in his 20s & 30s and his frustration

29:21 Why Kuan-wen is no longer arsed about perfecting his English pronunciation; how do you pronounce a "HOT DOG"?

30:54 Younger Italians having much lighter accents in English thanks to TV streaming

32:05 Why Silence of the Lambs was translated as Silence of the Innocent People in Italy?

32:51 The non-stop hand gestures

34:08 Luca's multi-layered stage persona and self-deprecating jokes

36:07 Italian Fascism - topics about being Italian that Luca insists on doing

36:41 The pros and cons of the "beautiful" Italian accent

39:21 Luca's 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show

39:35 Luca's social media

-------- -------------------------------

Luca's Instagram and Twitter

Luca's 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show Happy Orphan

Kuan-wen made a reference to a set by Maisie Adam - her French teacher with a think Yorkshire accent. You can find the clip here.

Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe

https://www.instagram.com/taigenkawabe/