Arts and Culture

A star-turn from 100 year old actor and activist, Thelma Ruby. Published on Inside Europe 20 March 2025https://www.dw.com/en/inside-europe-20-march-2025/audio-71990510

Known as the city of flowers, Sanremo is a picturesque town in northwestern Italy. For Italians, it’s most famous for the annual song festival which came to an end last weekend. Dany Mitzman has been enjoying the glitz and sparkle of this showcase for singer songwriters young and old. First broadcast on BBC Radio, From…

At an Italian wedding, food is more important than speeches – and confetti isn’t something you throw, it’s something you eat! First published on From Our Own Correspondent, BBC Radio 28 June 2012 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01k2bvl

Bologna is famous for The Three Ts: tortellini, towers and tits.  Incredibly, you can’t say ‘tits’ on American radio and Inside Europe is rebroadcast on many NPR stations, hence the beep. Luckily, this report was about one of the towers leaning precariously, not the tits! Published on Inside Europe, Radio DW, 25 January 2024https://www.dw.com/en/inside-europe-25-january-2024/audio-68086851

In a culture based on vendettas and fear of reprisals, on the Mafia code of silence, Pino Maniaci rebelled by very publicly turning this culture on its head. He produces a daily TV show chiefly dedicated to Mafia crime. You know when you are nearing Pino Maniaci’s studios: It’s not the military police escort parked…

In the 1990’s German artist Gunter Demnig created a project to commemorate the victims of Nazism: ‘Stolpersteine’ or ‘stumbling stones’ — small brass blocks set into pavements. He’s on the road for over 300 days a year, laying these commemorative memorials in front of the victims’ former homes. One of Gunter Demnig’s most recent stops…

Bologna is home to many of the country’s most treasured pasta dishes, made using fresh egg pasta known in Italian as la sfoglia.  The skill of making la sfoglia was traditionally passed on from mothers to their daughters. In recent times, the art seemed to be disappearing due to shop bought alternatives, but now homemade sfoglia…

The ocarina is a small terracotta wind instrument that looks, to some, like a miniature submarine, to others like a potato with holes in it. I think it looks like an upside down hairdryer. You may have never heard of it, but chances are you’ve actually heard it, because Ennio Morricone used it for one…

In 2006, Paris Hilton launched a drink. It was called Rich Prosecco, came in different fruity flavours and was marketed as ‘prosecco in a can’. In Italy it was considered an abomination and sparked fury among winemakers for tarnishing the reputation of their authentic sparkling white wine. I remember because I went to talk to some…

White truffles are a rare and expensive delicacy mostly found in Italy, especially in the north-western region of Piedmont, renowned for its wines and hazelnuts. They fetch around 300-450 euros per 100 grams. One reason the price is so high is because these ‘white gold’ mushrooms are becoming increasingly rare. Over the past 25 years,…

Zuppa Inglese. English Soup. It’s my least favourite Italian dessert, reminiscent of a British one that’s never done it for me either: trifle. It’s made with vanilla custard cream flavoured with a hint of lemon zest, chocolate custard cream, and sponge cake or sponge finger biscuits dipped in a peculiar, bright red liqueur. I’ve been…

Although there are exceptions, in modern European society we tend to live more and more isolated from those around us. How many of us know our neighbours well enough to invite them round for meals or ask them for a favour? In the north Italian city of Bologna, a young couple felt this was such…

Click here for audio version One of the world’s most famous self-portraits is going on rare public display in the northern Italian city of Turin. Very little is known about the 500-year-old, fragile, fading red chalk drawing of Leonardo da Vinci but some believe it has mystical powers. There is a myth in Turin that…

Earlier this year, Pride won the Queer Palm at Cannes film festival. Since then it’s become one of the most internationally popular feel­good films of 2014. Set in 1984, during the miners’ strike in Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher, it’s been likened to The Full Monty and Billy Elliot for its mix of social realism,…