Casanova — Season 1, Episode 5: Fevers of Love
Drama • 30 min • 1 season, 6 episodes • ★ 4.5/10
Episode synopsis
On a journey to London, Casanova meets an Englishman so thick he may as well be Lorenzo's double, and reunites with Schalon, whose pomposity has only increased since his release. Finding that English women are immune to his charms, Casanova advertises for a female tenant with intent of seducing her, but the plan sours when he finds himself genuinely attracted to her. Obsessed with and repulsed by sex, Casanova wonders whether he's any freer than he was in prison.
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.