Is Beppe Grillo Funny?

To start an argument at a dinner party in Rome, launch a conversation about Beppe Grillo. To the left and the right, the comedian-turned-political kingmaker is a disruption, standing in the way of a functioning government. The Economist simply calls him a populist clown.

That Grillo the politician has become inseparable from Grillo the comic is disappointing, says Italian film critic and playwright Italo Moscati. “I, too, am one of those on the Left, and I hear these arguments at dinner parties,” Moscati says. “These arguments fail to understand the significance of Beppe Grillo.”