Once he described breeding pandas as a "biological moonshot", and the entire enterprise – its complexity, its farcical notes – seems to give him great pleasure.
Ian Johnson, the publicist for the series, believed that the European judges did not understand the farcical humour in the episode, noting that the British delegates to the festival were "helpless with laughter".
Meanwhile the comic impulse, ousted from its early role in shaping the structure of the stories, becomes reabsorbed into the grain of the narrative itself, blending in with the other principal tonalities to form the characteristic hybrid Chekhovian note, where the tragic and the farcical, the lyrical and the prosaic, the tender and the grotesque are inextricable from each other.
Only Michelle Rabbani, as an island beauty, strikes the right note of restraint, even for a story so farcical.
Whether in response to the anger from irate fans, or simply incredulous that things got as far as they did, the creator of the change.org petition ended the campaign, noting that it was "low-brow satire, a farcical jest... shared with some friends" that got out of control.
After all, in France, as one analyst wryly notes, mutuals could not be held responsible for the "farcical behaviour" of Crédit Lyonnais, which made huge losses.
The note about torture being allowed after, but not during, the rendition operation itself has a farcical edge.
And in some ways, precisely because it's so overtly farcical, the play is even funnier now, even if it doesn't sound its more somber notes as fully.
How farcical became clear early in the new session, when a photographer with a telephoto lens captured the text of a note that Berlusconi sent to two young female deputies, Gabriella Giammanco and Nunzia De Girolamo, on the Chamber floor: Gabri, Nunzia, you look great together!
