Daniele Luttazzi

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Daniele Luttazzi (born January 26, 1961, Santarcangelo di Romagna, Rimini), real name Daniele Fabbri, is an Italian comedian, writer, satirist, illustrator and singer/songwriter. His stage name is a homage to musician and actor Lelio Luttazzi.

Fifteen years after his first winning monologue performed in a comedy contest held at Teatro Sistina in Rome, nowadays Luttazzi is one of the most successful and influential comedians in Italy. His favourite topics are essentially political satire, religion, sex and the body.

In 2002, he was banned from RAI, the Italian public broadcasting company, by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was angry because Luttazzi, at that time host of Satyricon, a raunchy late night comedy show, interviewed Marco Travaglio, the author of a book that exposed Mr. Berlusconi's links with the Mafia. Now he can work in theatres only. He is often cited by the European press (i.e. The Economist, Le Monde, El Pais) as proof of Mr Berlusconi's censorship of the opposition.

He has written 8 monologues and 3 plays for the theatre, 14 comedy books, 1 radio program and 4 TV variety shows (author / performer / host) which received critical acclaim. His comedy gigs are always sold out.

He writes political and satirical essays for Micromega, a left-wing periodical.

He likes to draw as well. Recently, a selection of his drawings was published as a book called Capolavori (Masterpieces). An art gallery in Genova sells them.

He even composed and sang songs (lyrics and music) for a CD named Money for dope. The CD is destined to be proposed in the future as a musical.

His last show, Come uccidere causando inutili sofferenze, ended in Rome, November 24, 2006. Seven thousand people run and see him at Palalottomatica that evening.

He currently is a script doctor for Comedy Central and HBO.

His blog, www.danieleluttazzi.it, is one of the most famous in Italy.

1 Biography
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Luttazzi began his comic career performing satirical monologues in theatre shows. He became famous in 1994 doing funny characters in the popular comedy show Mai dire Gol (Never say Goal), aired by Italia 1.

Always for Italia 1, in 1998 he brought to Italy the late night show genre with his first one-man show, called Barracuda, that took as pattern the popular United States late night shows of David Letterman and Jay Leno. Luttazzi did monologues about the recent news, interviews with famous showbiz and politics personalities, and skits addressed to an adult audience.

The same formula was then adopted for his next TV show, called Satyricon, aired by the public channel Rai Due.

During the March 14, 2001 transmission, just two months before the Italian general elections, Luttazzi hosted the journalist Marco Travaglio, in order to talk about his brand-new book, named L'odore dei soldi (Smell of money), dedicated to a critical reconstruction of Silvio Berlusconi's first years as entrepreneur and his links with the mob. Luttazzi and the RAI came immediately under attack by Fininvest, the main business company of Berlusconi. Berlusconi filed a lawsuit against Luttazzi. So did his companies Mediaset and Fininvest, and his political party, Forza Italia. Luttazzi won all the trials. The judges said all the facts told in the interview were true.

After to the 2001 success at the general election and his appointment as Prime Minister of Italy, during an official visit in Sofia, Bulgaria, Berlusconi declared about a criminal use of television by showman Luttazzi and popular journalists Enzo Biagi and Michele Santoro, suggesting that the new right-wing-dominated RAI management should not permit it any longer.

During the next months, Luttazzi, Biagi and Santoro were gradually dismissed by the public broadcasting service and they still have no opportunity to appear on TV shows in the whole national Italian TV system.

Since his exclusion from the television, Luttazzi concentrated on theatre shows and bookwriting. The subtitle of one of his show, Adenoidi, is Bin Laden può andare in televisione e io no (Bin Laden can appear on TV and I can't).