Salvu Mallia claims Eddie Fenech Adami and the late Dom Mintoff as his fans. He tells David Schembri he’s hit on the right formula to make culture appealing to a mass audience.

Is-Sajf mas-Salv presenter Salvu Mallia.

Salvu Mallia is a popular, popular broadcaster. Popular in the first instance, because his onscreen presence on Madwarna and Is-Sajf mas-Salv has made him a household name and face. And under a slightly different definition, it is because he prides himself on producing programmes which speak the people’s language.

He will tell you as much himself, and this he does as we settle into a bar in the Żurrieq main square, where he is filming a scene for his summer series, Is-Sajf mas-Salv. His tanned complexion, flamboyant facial hair and worn-out I Love Malta T-shirt suggest that onscreen Salvu and the man I am speaking to now are one and the same person; that it is not an act.

The person on the thousands of screens facing busy kitchens, plastic-coated sofas and double beds is actually, Mallia says, himself, not a persona.

“It’s the side of my personality which comes out when I’m at a party or with friends – it’s not put on. I’m afraid that’s me,” he says.

And it is him people recognise out in the street. As we inch towards the bar, men his age call out: “Salvu, how are you today?” as if they were old classmates or drinking buddies.

I turn round and ask where he knows these people – he shrugs, saying he doesn’t, but it’s a grateful shrug, not one of indifference. “They know me from my show,” he says. That the programme on the previous day featured Żurrieq must have helped, too.

Mallia’s onscreen career started out in a roundabout way. Having just been made unemployed, he needed work: “I didn’t know I could present a programme. I’ve acted, mostly in alternative theatre, but presenting is a different kettle of fish, I was afraid I’d miss lines,” says Mallia, who researches, scripts and presents everything himself.

Despite being new on screen, Mallia is no stranger to television, and has in the past produced television dealing with historical material.

However, it is with Madwarna and Is-Sajf mas-Salv that his material really exploded, which he credits to his knack of delivering the facts as if in a bar-room discussion.

“This is the first time a cultural programme has an enormous viewership from all strata – from parkers, to taxi drivers to politicians. Last week, a man who said he was close to (Dom) Mintoff in his last days said Mintoff wouldn’t miss an episode – to me, having someone like that following your programme is saying something…

This is the first time a cultural programme has an enormous viewership from all strata

“I also met Eddie Fenech Adami recently, who said he didn’t miss an episode. The show has a very wide viewership,” Mallia says, a hint of pride present in his voice.

The short form of the programmes – Madwarna started out as a 10-minute filler, eventually being expanded to a 15-minute programme with its own time slot – allows Mallia to cast his net wide and to deal with topics requiring just the 15 minutes – such as the triptych which was once in a chapel on Filfla – to more substantial candidates, such as the Mattia Preti exhibition organised recently.

The relative ease with which the short episodes can be slotted in has also worked wonders for the programme’s ubiquity, and sometimes they are broadcast four times a day.

Madwarna and Is-Sajf mas-Salv have also enabled Mallia – now 61 – to draw on his stash of hitherto useless general knowledge about the islands. “What use was knowing that La Vallette had a daughter who died?” he asks.

Having left school at 13 to join the priesthood (which, by his own admission, he soon abandoned for a life of atheism, left-wing anarchical ideals and women), he has no formal schooling, but he learns from each and every programme.

Although he recognises that he might not be everyone’s cup of tea, he reports that the criticism levelled towards him has not been over factual accuracy, but more towards his gestures, a very prominent feature of his show.

He pins this down to his being Mediterranean; however, he points out that he’s heard of people from England and Finland following his programme, and that the gestures help them follow as much as their lack of Maltese can allow them.

Walking with Is-Salv around Żurrieq, it is evident that his talk of his popularity is not the product of his imagination. A woman in her 30s, minding her own business, approaches Mallia and politely compliments him for the previous day’s programme.

What he wants, however, is for the powers-that-be to recognise his popularity and to use it to promote culture.

“I honestly feel there isn’t enough appreciation (for my work) from officialdom. People tell me I’m giving a service to Malta and to people… I’m not saying give me Ġieħ ir-Repubblika, although that wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he laughs.

“I think I can be used a lot more. Heritage Malta doesn’t seem to want to latch on to this – you’ve got Salvu! Why not use me when you know I can reach so many people?”

He also laments the fact that instead of investing in programmes which, like his, work, too much money is spent on television programmes which, he claims, “only about 20 people watch”.

He then goes into an off-the-record litany of programmes whose continued existence befuddles him, punctuating his list with “Who watches that?” In each case, it is not the content that he criticises, but the delivery, which he believes he can give.

“Two years ago, I approached PBS for a programme called L-Istorja Skond is-Salv – but it was turned down because someone said I wasn’t qualified enough to do this programme. I’m not proud; I will approach experts and curators. I want academics to come to me and I’ll bring it to the people. I’m a presenter,” Mallia says.

Mallia is the surname shared by his boss Abigail, who also happens to be his daughter. Doesn’t he find working for his daughter awkward?

“It’s fun, there isn’t that father-daughter thing; we get on tremendously well. I’m an anarchist, and I feel my children are the same, they’re both for the underdog (Mallia’s son is No Bling Show frontman Jon Mallia).”

As an example of this, he cites the episode which he filmed at the Malta International Airport, where he had zoomed in onto the work of the cleaners. With such a wide scope, it isn’t hard to see why Salvu Mallia is the people’s presenter.

Salvu Mallia presents Is-Sajf mas-Salv, broadcast at 8.40pm every Thursday on TVM, and Madwarna, currently broadcast every day at 1.30pm.