The Great Manzini

Lukas Litzsinger

There is no doubt that Mario Manzini makes a great subject for a story.  However, this does not mean that the story will automatically be great.  I felt that there was too much introduction before the first quote, as it is important to lay the groundwork for the piece early.  You were also left wondering what exactly the point of it all was for too long...delayed identification is probably not the best choice in a radio story.  If people don't understand the significance, you better keep them with you until they do.

This is not to say that the story was a poor one.  Manzini is a fascinating subject, and despite some lack of internal logic ('Showbiz saved my life...' followed by 'Some of the tricks are more dangerous than staying in the mob') and an overly ambitious biography the story was nonetheless interesting once it got going.  There were no natural sounds and only one subject, yet adding either another subject or natural sounds probably would have detracted from the focus.  Technically, the audio maxed out a couple of times but otherwise was passable.