Silvio Berlusconi, his friend Roberto Benigni, and the terrible news

Monday, December 17, 2012. Roberto Benigni, Academy Award winner actor, comedian director and screenwriter, appears in state-owned TV Rai1 to host a programme about the Italian Constitution, grabs the occasion and mocks his favourite target, Silvio Berlusconi.

Roberto Benigni, wary about Silvio Berlusconi's comeback

Over 12.6 million viewers – a share of 43.9 per cent – watched Roberto Benigni's “La più bella del mondo” (“The most beautiful in the world”), a public television programme about the Italian Constitution, but – as usual – Italian Academy Award winning comedian had something to say about Silvio Berlusconi's comeback into Italian politics (the video very beginning of the show is on our YouTube channel).

The director of the Oscar-winning tragicomedy "Life is Beautiful" on the Holocaust is not new to such cultural happenings, he recited Dante's Divine Comedy on TV on the past and sang (and explained) Italy's anthem to viewers last year, on a programme celebrating 150 years of Italian Nation, last year.

But he can't help being a comedian, and Silvio Berlusconi has always been his favourite target.

"I wanted to talk about beautiful things, but this December there were two awful, catastrophic, news" quips Benigni. "One you know it all, December 21 there is the end of the world, but that's not the ugliest. You know, the end of the world, you can just get over it.”

Silvio Berlusconi at Canale5's Domenica Live

“Another, really terrible, news has really smashed everyone, in a period when so many Italians wish to retire and cannot do it. The only Italian who could really go and retire whenever he wanted if he just wanted it, is not doing it.” continued Roberto Benigni “Silvio is standing again, Lord pity us all”.

"He's got nothing to lose” added Benigni gesticulating wildly as he was painting a well known picture of a scandalous Silvio Berlusconi, “he's done it all now: orgies, lawyers, minors. He already had a crazy time!".

During the show Benigni also invited Mario Monti, the current Italian prime minister (though he said we will soon resign, since Berlusconi's Peopleof Liberty party withdraw its support to Monti's government) to join the TV programme and make a fake announcement that he will run in elections just to stop Berlusconi.

Berlusconi was also in TV recently, most possibly in an attempt to please housewives and romantic women watching TV shows on Sunday afternoon, Silvio Berlusconi declared he was engaged to 49 years younger Francesca Pascale on Canale5's Domeni Live show, but most probably Benigni's show was recorded previously, so he did not mentioned nor commented the good news (we are sure he would have liked to), so he focused on bad news. [Added on Dec. 19: Benigni show was live, and he did comment the good news! See Chiara's comment for further details. Sorry for that, folks.]

We knew already that almost everybody is against Silvio's comeback, and it was just obvious that Robert Benigni would be the staunchest opponent to it.