Kathleen Jordan
Netflix
The influential thinker and writer Douglas Rushkoff was once summoned to an audience with five Silicon Valley billionaires. As he recounts in , their concern was impending apocalypse – not how they might prevent it, but how to outrun it. The preppers quizzed Rushkoff on threats to humanity and where to build their bunkers. But most crucial was how they could stop their hired security, required to deal with angry mobs storming the proverbial gates, from wresting control of the refuges the moguls had built.
That last question is of utmost importance in The Decameron, a bawdy, eight-part adaptation of writer Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of short stories. In the 14th-century original, 10 young people shelter in a villa outside Florence, Italy, to escape the Black Death. To pass the time, they tell tales of love and licentiousness. In Netflix’s very loose take, what starts as a bacchanal descends into a fight for survival, especially as the rigid class boundaries unravel.
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Arriving at the idyllic Villa Santa, Florentine society A-listers are welcomed by Sirisco (Tony Hale), steward to the absent Visconte Leonardo. Chief among the guests is Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), a spoiled socialite who bullies her underling Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) and is soon to be married to Leonardo.
As the revellers (and servants) pile in, their secrets are revealed: Filomena (Tanya Reynolds) is in fact Licisca, her long-suffering lackey. Misia is harbouring her lover in the cellars, while the pious Neifile (Lou Gala) and her wily husband Panfilo (Karan Gill) both lust after physician Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel). Far from Florence’s pustulated underbelly, they are free to seduce and outdo each other – until the outside world comes knocking.
There is a healthy amount of Monty Pythonesque silliness throughout, alongside tropes from early modern literature. Expect mistaken identities, shrewd servants, foolish nobles and gender politics. The anachronisms are well chosen: the cast use their own accents and their antics are set to music from the likes of Depeche Mode and New Order. Add fine comedic chops – Hale and Jackson are excellent, as is Jessica Plummer (the real Filomena) – and there is a lot to love.
It is also refreshing that The Decameron burns through its storylines fast. Events you may imagine playing out in the season finale sneak up and are replaced with more intrigue, largely successfully. The jumble of plots that unfold – some erotic, some tragic, some just fun – retains some of the original’s rich storytelling. But we always return to the power struggle.
So while this Decameron works well as ribald Renaissance farce, its steelier class commentary is also, however indirectly, an excellent satire on our tech elite preppers. Through wealth and power, the Villa Santa nobles want to buy survival, but are stumped when it comes to their servants. They can’t live without them, but can’t control them either, not when the crisis raging outside has made the old order irrelevant.
Whether by colonising Mars or hiding in remote compounds, the Musks and Zuckerbergs of our time are dreaming up their own Villa Santas. As Rushkoff puts it, they are indulging fantasies of escaping from the rest of us. The Decameron is a lesson in how such sanctuaries may or may not change hands – and it is hilarious to boot.
Bethan also recommends…
Mitchell Hurwitz
Netflix
Tony Hale, who plays Sirisco in The Decameron, made his name as Buster Bluth in this cult sitcom about a wealthy and dysfunctional family. Possibly the cleverest comedy ever made.
Lisa McGee
Netflix
Saoirse-Monica Jackson (The Decameron’s Misia) has the most expressive face on TV. She plays Erin, a teenager in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – it is far funnier than that sounds.
Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor at ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. She is still upset about the ending of Game of Thrones. Follow her on X @‌inkerley
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