Two is the magic number for Carlos Debattista and Abigail Mallia. The television duo joined forces after their previous production house – 4people – dissolved due to creative differences. As a pair, they have helmed the production of some of local television’s most successful programmes – Evanġelisti, Deċeduti, Min Imissu and, more recently, Madwarna and Is-Sajf mas-Salv.

Their latest endeavour, the mouthful that is IżdImmaMentriPerò, sees the producers meld the comedic elements present in Deċeduti and Min Imissu with the more informative style of Madwarna and Is-Sajf mas-Salv.

“It’s part documentary, part comedy; it’s a documentary with comedy thrown in,” Debattista says of the duo’s latest venture. “The documentary part is handled by Salvu Mallia (Abigail’s father), as is part of the comedy. Part of the comedy centres on the programme’s behind-the-scenes… it’s an on-screen behind the scenes,” Debattista says.

The script is 90 per cent of your success

“That’s the innovation,” Mallia enthuses. “We’ve got facts, culture, but we also have characters who are in the picture; there’s a mixture of the two.”

Debattista chips in: “We’ve got the comedy feeding off the facts… Then there are the Uti… the characters who are watching the show – there are the Detenuti, the Paxxuti, Batuti…”.

“There’s also going to be a character from Deċeduti,” Mallia adds.

“The idea is to get a theme… the last one was sex, the next one is death. We take them from a philosophical point, but for people who don’t like thinking when watching TV, it’s embedded – in a big way – in humour. For example, we had a programme about violence, the premise of which was that everything started from violence and not love, that even the universe, that nature is violent. This programme makes you think in a different way,” Mallia says.

Whose philosophy gets an airing in the programme? “A lot of it is my dad’s,” Mallia laughs.

That Take2 have ventured yet again into the business of making people laugh is, it turns out, not in keeping with the pair’s sensibilities.

“We don’t really like comedy, but it seems that we’re not doing anything else,” Mallia says. “Even if we had to choose what to watch, we wouldn’t watch comedy.”

Although Debattista professes to enjoy comedy, both agree that writing comedy – particularly for Maltese television – is no easy task.

“TV has to be done. Every week. If you’re not feeling funny, the programme still has to be,” Mallia says.

“In Malta it’s very hard to write comedy because you have to tiptoe around everything… everything. If you look at comedy abroad, it’s brutal, in your face, no holds barred,” Debattista says. “Now we’ve been told that we really push it…”

Mallia ­– “But we feel we’re really mild.”

“You’d be surprised how many jokes Abigail cuts from our scripts,” Debattista says.

What would these taboo issues be? Paedophilia?

“You wouldn’t even go there,” Mallia says.

One of their main problems, it transpires, was making use of physical characteristics for comedic effect. “You don’t touch physical defects,” Mallia says. “In Malta we’re offended if we joke on physical characteristics, but don’t mind intellectual defects – it’s okay to call someone stupid but it’s not fine to say someone has a large nose,” Debattista says.

Because of the small size of the island, the two have to tiptoe not only to avoid offending people, but because the pond is so small that one ruined business relationship can end your career.

“We had a character in Min Imissu who spoke with a T…” Mallia says, and “we’ve had people telling us they wouldn’t work with us because of the portrayal of her character,” Debattista continues.

“And she was an endearing character – she presented a programme and she did her job well,” Mallia says, an air of exasperation lingering in her words.

The local television milieu also means that productions do not get the gestation time afforded in other markets. “We got the idea in May, June; but as soon as we knew we were going to make it happen, we had a month and a half to build the set, to get the research done, auditions costumes, styling,” Mallia says.

“It’s crazy,” they say in unison.

“The problem is complex,” Mallia goes on to explain. “Technically speaking, there isn’t the budget to do more than what we’re doing. We’re already busting the budget here; to work on a series we have to keep working till 1am every day – and we’re not being paid to do that. We believe it has to be the strength of the idea that carries it. The concept for Deċeduti, for example, was innovative; you have to trust the strength of the idea.”

Despite Deċeduti’s runaway success, it only lasted two seasons; it turns out that two years is the absolute maximum they’re prepared to let a programme last.

“To this day, people stop us to ask why we stopped Deċeduti,” Mallia says.

“We believe that you should quit while you’re at the top, so there’s a certain amount of anticipation for the next project…,” Debattista says, with Mallia quickly adding: “Apart from that, we have really short lives – people don’t realise this – and if I spend more than two years on the same thing I’d end up shooting myself in the head.”

The two have set their sights on bigger audiences; they have teamed up with Mallia’s brother Jon (the lead singer of rap group No Bling Show) to work on a film, the details of which are still under wraps as they await news of funding.

“As much as we love this country, we’re stuck in a very tiny pond. If you look at the film we’re writing for the international market, it has nothing to do with local television,” Mallia says. “It’s inspired by true events… we’ve got very funny scenes, but it’s conceptually serious – it should be serious.”

Unlike their small-screen efforts, they are taking their time writing the script, and have even work-shopped it with American screenwriting guru Bobette Buster and within focus groups, which they have found extremely helpful.

“I hate saying this because I’m not a writer myself, but the script is 90 per cent of your success; if you don’t have the story, noone, no director, no actor, no one will save it,” Mallia concluded.

IżdImmaMentriPerò is broadcast every Monday at 8.45pm on TVM.