Oh dear, they don’t want Mary Spiteri
Mary Spiteri singing at the launch of Jason Micallef’s personal election campaign last year. He failed to be elected.
Mary Spiteri and Jason Micallef at one of the latter’s personal election campaign parties last year. He failed to be elected.
Mary Spiteri sings with her former Gensna co-star Renato in front of a backdrop bearing a large photograph of Jason Micallef’s face, to promote him an election candidate. He failed to be elected.
Mary Spiteri is spitting tacks. The decrepit original 1970s cast of Gensna, including Renato and His Rug, have been asked to perform in this year’s resuscitation of the Mintoffian musical, an epic piece of propaganda best described as Soviet Rock (the lowly but formidable worker casts off the yoke of foreign/capitalist oppression and rises up to build a New Nation, swapping his mammoth-fur loincloth and flint axe for a boiler-suit and a hammer).
But she, the famous singer of Tema 79, the Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina of Gensna, has not been asked back. She was told, when she asked, that the organisers want “new and young” singers. But then she found out that the old ones, including those who are now constrained to wear wigs, have been asked back. And she hasn’t.
Can her best friend Jason Micallef help her? Clearly not. The National Festivities Committee, which is organising the show, is out of bounds to Micallef. Lou Bondi was originally asked to sit on the Valletta 2018 committee, a year ago, which Micallef notoriously heads. Micallef then gave an interview to Newsbook saying that Bondi would join him on that committee over his dead body. The National Festivities Committee was then set up and Bondi included in that instead.
I agree with the decision to drop Mary Spiteri. Some people never know when they are past their sell-by date. But then they should have dropped the rest of the old cast for the same reason, and not be resurrecting this show at all.
Gensna was never about the music but about the propaganda messages and lyrics, and in that respect, it’s the stage equivalent of those Soviet era statues of workers with raised fists that were toppled by angry crowds right across eastern and central Europe 24 years ago.
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It’s a shame that Lou Bondi turned out to be such an absolute pushover and turncoat. Disgusted.
John Bundy is more disgusted than you are.
Surely no one expected Bondi to be so easily persuaded.
I did.
People have such short memories.
He surfaced in 1987, took a dive 1996 and resurfaced 22 months later.
Is Ira Losco the new Mary Spiteri?
I think we should be told. So I can buy a snorkel and a high-powered lens.
Plus ça change, what?
Looks like Mary has paid a visit to botox JPO. Another failure.
HPB, ‘who’ would not aspire to be the new ‘Mary Spiteri’ – a refined character and a singer of international stature (didn’t she, after all, sing to the Maltese immigrants at the Sydney Opera House?).
I aspire to be the new Mintoff – an insatiable sex god and statesman of international stature (didn’t he, after all, make sweet love on a yacht to Vanessa Redgrave? Or was it Charlotte Rampling?
Is this for real ?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140311/local/ministry-officials-to-see-the-public-at-pl-clubs.510152
Do I understand correctly that public officials will be helping Manuel Mallia in political activities at PL clubs, and ones in his constituencies to boot? Taghna lkoll indeed.
Have things really become that bad or am I misunderstanding the article?
Daphne,
What’s your take on Lou Bondi?
[Daphne – That’s not something I wish to discuss.]
I understand.
Can I discuss it instead?
Lou Bondì used to be something of a hero of mine. He had a brain and a sharp tongue, and used them well, as real journalists should.
Until he met his buddy Joe Azzopardi and caught the idiot bug. He even brought that Simone Cini on board, who contributed nothing to the programme except hamallagni and vojtagni. His programme turned into an entertainment-stupidifest like Xarabank, with the nadir being Simone Cini ringing the doorbells of Malta’s celebs for an impromptu voyeur-interview. Her first subject was Anglu Xuereb, which kind of set the stage for the rest of them.
Once you hitch your wagon to Xarabank, it’s a crazy, merry ride down to Idiotville and megalomania, with Bondì’s greatest love – rock’n’roll – taking valuable airtime. The show began to fall to pieces, and all the while ratings rose. Because the Maltese, bless ’em, love some good old escapism.
The final act opened with the rise to power of Joseph Muscat, who courted Lou Bondì like an escort courts her sugar daddy. The two became regular lunch buddies, were on first name terms – even unto a live programme, if you please – and what little was left of Bondì’s analytical powers evaporated along with his dignity. Joseph Muscat had found, as many have, that Maltese celebs, even the most hardened Nazzjonalisti, are accessible on the side of flattery.
The rest is history. Bondì was strangely meek during the run-up to the election campaign.
Now he’s digging into the iced bun he was given.
What a way to exit centre stage – from hero to complete nobody on some government board.
Sic transit gloria Swanson.
Survival instinct or hypocrisy
Is that it? There must be more to it. And his partner, the co-producer of that show, has now taken up a job managing the news team at The Malta Independent.
Love it, Baxxter. ‘Sic transit gloria Swanson’. Such a tonque in cheek comment. Even Billy Wilder would love it.
I stole that from Terry Wogan. Sorry.
Bravo Baxxter! A perfect explanation.
@ Mario
I was very concerned when I read that.
Mary Spiteri is a vintage suldat tal-azzar. I can’t figure out why she was pulled out of Gensna.
What’s your theory, Daphne?
[Daphne – I don’t have one. I just wish that the people who were in public life when I was at school would do the proper thing and retire gracefully to play rummy and stay out of sight. They don’t know when enough is enough and then take umbrage when somebody forces the issue.]
Well, Mary should have realized it’s time to retire when her Salvatur was buried. I’m not sure but I don’t think she was one of the Gensna original cast. But anyway, Mary and the old cast should move out and let new singers in. I really believe this is part of an ego fight and a denial (like Marlene Mizzi 60-25) that she has now aged.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140312/local/former-labour-mp-Dalli-appointed-to-harbour-board.510273
He must be nearly an octogenarian.
And the Times used wrong pic, that of the Brussels convict, and had to issue a correction .
Now this is one singer I really, truly dislike. .
I quote ” Some people never know when they are past their sell-by date ” unquote. My question is so why are you still around daphne because you’re used by date is way past!
[Daphne – That’s not what the figures say, Robert: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/MT ]