Danielle Mitzman

It’s neither restaurant nor trattoria, fast food nor snack bar: the north Italian town of Bologna is about to experience a novel kind of eatery. They’re calling it Slotfood – the new way of dining being launched in the Italian food capital this week.

Traditional dishes made by professional restaurant chefs dispensed in plastic containers from a vending machine: an alternative for those who don’t have the time or money to eat at a restaurant but want a nutritious hot meal rather than a burger or kebab. Slow food packaged as fast food.

The two thirty-somethings behind the concept are Giacomo Barbieri and Marco Franchini. About to open “JakFox” – their first slotfood venue – they’ve been telling Dany Mitzman how their idea reflects the changing face of Italian society today.

We often think of criminal lawyers as a sort of self-assured, silver-tongued elite, skilled in the arts of rhetoric and persuasion. Like the dashing figures of Hollywood movies, bestselling legal thrillers and classic TV dramas, they can convince even the most hostile judge and jury and, with a tear-jerking climax, get their defendant that “not guilty” verdict.

Well, back to reality. For freshly qualified lawyers that courtroom panache doesn’t necessarily come with a law degree. In Italy, where style really counts, a group of young criminal lawyers in Venice have come to the conclusion that it’s something they’re definitely missing. They’ve decided the best way to improve their lacklustre courtroom performances is… by having drama lessons! Not role-plays or simulations but a 3-month intensive theatre course to give them a burst of penal pizzazz.

Dany Mitzman went along to the course venue: a tennis club gym in Venice’s mainland town of Mestre, to play audience to one of their drama classes.