When celebrities, billionaires and bankers alike hunkered down in their palatial manors during the coronavirus pandemic, a dividing line of the haves and have-nots quite clearly emerged. From the picture painted in Netflix's The Decameron, it was a similar situation as the plague raged in medieval Europe.
The new drama-comedy is set in Black Death-ridden Florence, where buboes are ripping through the population at pace. The Mummy's John Hannah is (spoiler!) one of the first we see go, big sweaty pustules creeping along his neck. His servant Licisca (Sex Education's Tanya Reynolds) tries to ward off the rank smell and threat of infection by shoving daisies up her nostrils. Seems like a sound idea.
On to this petri dish lands an invitation to get away from it all and escape to the country. A ragtag group of pompous nobles and their long-suffering staff flee Firenze and descend on Villa Santa.
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What unfolds is a boozy sex romp in the Tuscan hills, as the guests of the missing viscount's villa bed-hop and social climb from week to week like hopefuls on your standard season of Love Island. As time passes, the larks of a fresh start in the countryside devolve into Lord of the Flies survivalism in the hopes of staying on top.
Anyone vaguely versed in 14th-century author Giovanni Boccaccio's short stories of the same name will probably be bemused by this eight-parter, whose similarities end with the name and narrative frame.
The Decameron revs into action with an opening-credits sequence of rats. The jaunty, if on-the-nose, parade sees the conduits of plague scamper into the shape of a skull and other things, like an elaborately timed drone display.
Get past this and the initial awkwardness of finding its tonal feet, and this Netflix dramedy is a lot of fun. The comedy chops are here, with a cast including Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls) as a sapphic servant, Zosia Mamet (Girls) as the capricious viscountess-in-waiting and Tony Hale as an eager-to-please but little-appreciated lackey – like his aide in Veep.
Most of the show's fun comes from its unhinged character beats, rather than any specific plot points. There's also a batty hypochondriac (Douggie McMeekin) who lurches from one fatal ailment to another, accompanied by his outrageously hot personal physician (Amar Chadha-Patel).
There's a god-fearing noblewoman (Lou Gala) who's turned on by the sight of topless peasants self-flagellating in the streets. Then there's her closeted and secretly penniless husband (Karan Gill). And there are more besides them. It's a small army of characters you have to get to grips with.
Once you've grappled with who's who and also made peace with the fact that nobody is speaking in anything but their own, very-much-not-Italian accents, the foolery of this Horrible Histories-ification of the plague world sucks you in.
As well as that cast, the cash has been splashed on the scenery and costuming. It is Netflix, after all.
The very real fight for survival in the big smoke is shrunken and made farcical with the grubby, social-climbing fight for survival within the lush hedges of the villa. The question of what they're climbing towards becomes harder to ignore with half of Europe struck down around them.
Like the charlatans, nobles and servants in Villa Santa themselves, you'll become wrapped up in the small machinations of this world in no time. When you finally emerge to peek past the villa gates, you may discover the plague has abated and all eight episodes have slipped on by.
The Decameron is available to stream on Netflix from July 25.
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Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
