Nearly 30 years ago, at about 6pm in the evening, at the Perfection in Valletta, a youngish man walked in wearing a long coat and probably smoking a roll-up cigarette, with a swagger and a slight swinging movement which was very typical of you, Pino.

I was about to direct my third or fourth play at Ateatru in Tignè in those two rooms we took over from a boxing association (not a good move you might think) and I had been wanting to do Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist in Maltese for quite some time. It was the early 1980s and Nardu Debono’s death was then pretty recent.

Do you remember Pino, you and Samson repeating “ħeqq qabeż hux” (well, he jumped) and your zany policeman character not exactly sure what was happening?

I was in awe of you in that Valletta café and I think I stuttered when I asked you to take part… and to my surprise you were also in awe and pleased to be given a part. You were at MTADA at the time.

Our weekends in Mosta with Anna, Maggie, Annabelle, Monica, and a host of other people who used to come and go, play cards, eat and some other things best not mentioned.  And after Fo, we went on to Arrabal and then your first major role as the clerk in Oreste Calleja’s masterpiece Satira.

You and your mouth organ (you called it something else, I don’t remember), and of course your faded blue Fiat 127 with no windows and no locks. That car took us to Xlendi for two weeks in summer, where we would sit with Saviour and Dominic at the old St Patrick’s drinking beer and then off to the Rook.

At some point we would end up sleeping on the floor in someone’s house or in the car, not knowing exactly how we got there. Remember the priest who once knocked on our flat in Xlendi and the long existential conversation you had with him about the meaning of life?

Fast-track to our colourful relationship with Francis Ebejer and then your move to Perugia. By the way you will be in good company where you are now with Remo, Mario Ellul, Mario Muscat and Claudio.

I never really understood your fascination with animal husbandry, but fully appreciated your Libyan stories.

Moving on to Milan, we shared a flat in Via Sebino where we had boxes for furniture and a washing machine that had a life of its own and would move around our flat of its own accord. We were both vegetarians at the time, something I abandoned for want of better cuisine: so pasta and cheese it was.

Then one day, thanks to our anarchical friends, we occupied a space in Viale Bligny 22, with others  to work on Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange  in a beautiful space , where we lit bonfires indoors to keep ourselves warm in that cold snowy winter in Milan. We had nothing but we had everything.

Thanks to you, your energy which spurred me on to make the impossible possible and to finally turn the place into a theatre space in its own right, where we worked daily, rehearsing, performing and fighting.

Funnily enough to make a point you would say in English: “You don’t understand me, Peter.” I never understood why. And it was in one of our endless creative arguments that you stuck a knife through your hand.

We were, I can safely say creatively aggressive and those who have had the displeasure of one of our tirades, know exactly what I am taking about. Nhandan first and later Katia brought some calm to the storm, and in time she would work with us.

A number of people coloured our Italian adventures from the Ciao Ciao hosts Flavio and Davide, to writers Anna, Elisabetta, Simona, and Claudio. Then of course Nhandan who was to become for some time our compagno di battaglia, before she was dispatched off to Grotowski.

Then Manuel, Luca and Teatro Invito, which signalled a new phase in our professional career, working with Michele and Scarlattine Teatro, and then your own company with Katia and all the others you worked with after I left Italy to get devoured by Maltese TV.

I feel I have a car without an engine. I need the engine Pino, so please do your best to find ways of providing this for me. You are my Vladimir to my Estragon: “We always find something eh Didi, to give us the impression that we exist?” to which you would reply: “Yes, yes we are magicians.”


Peter Busuttil is an actor, theatre director and former Film Commissioner.

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