Jacopo Fo

Jacopo Fo (born 31 March 1955) is an Italian writer-actor and director. He is the son of playwrights Franca Rame and Dario Fo. His 1992 book Lo Zen e l'arte di scopare (Zen and the Art of Fucking) sold more than 70,000 copies. It formed the basis of the 1994 monologue Sesso? Grazie, tanto per gradire! (Sex? Thanks, Don't Mind If I Do!), which Jacopo Fo worked on with his father and mother, featuring educational pieces on topics such as AIDS, contraception, sex education and sexual repression. The government of Silvio Berlusconi, recently risen to power, banned Italians under the age of 18 from seeing it over fears, it said, that the play could "cause offence to the common decency which requires respect for spheres of decency, and provoke distress among adolescent spectators, with possible effects on their behaviour in relation to sex", thus defeating the original purpose of the performance. Much free publicity ensued, with the censorship issue being debated in the national parliament, teachers calling for it to be performed, and audiences and both Italian and foreign intellectuals signing a petition calling for the ban to be overturned. Jacopo Fo has in more recent times been prominent in the political campaign of Beppe Grillo.