Casanova — Season 1, Episode 2: One at a Time
Drama • 30 min • 1 season, 6 episodes • ★ 4.5/10
Episode synopsis
Bragadin uses his influence to have Casanova moved to a larger, better-lit cell — just as he was making headway on an escape tunnel. Discovering the hole, Lorenzo takes the opportunity to strip search Casanova, on pretext of looking for the instrument he dug it with. To increase Casanova's misery, he has to share his new cell with an acquaintance, the obnoxious broker Schalon, whose perfumed silks bring with them memories of happier, pre-incarceration times.
About Casanova
Italian adventurer and libertine Giovanni Jacopo Casanova lived from 1725 to 1798, but in this six-part series Dennis Potter attempted to find a contemporary relevance through his central themes of sex and religion. He commented that Casanova "was concerned with religious and sexual freedom, and these are the things we have to address ourselves to now." Casanova was imprisoned in Venice in 1755, and Potter used that event as a central device, constantly inter-cutting to contrast Casanova's amorous escapades, radiant, joyful and brightly lit, with his oppressive solitary confinement in the gloom of a half-darkened cell.