Ahn'Ahna jew M'Ahniex

Ahn'Ahna jew M'Ahniex is the cult comedy/satire series which hit Malta's TV screens in the late eighties. Vince Fabri, the well known guitarist on TV show Xarabank, was a key member of the team that is getting together this week for a reunion. In this interview with MaltaToday he recalls the good old days:

Eventually I got involved in my first musical: Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri, based on Prof Friggieri’s book. We were more or less the same group as always, the same people who were doing street theatre. From then on we did not look back: ideas flowed and soon we were in the middle of producing Ahn’Ahna Jew M’Ahniex, which was something completely new for Malta. In fact it took about three episodes for the audience to latch on to what was happening. At first no-one could identify with the concept of Ahn’Ahna Jew M’ahniex and the response was not very encouraging. This caused us no end of worries: I remember that we had filmed all the episodes before the first one was aired and when we failed to get an immediate response it was quite a blow.

Luckily, by the third time we went out on air, people seemed to have got used to it. Looking back I can easily understand why people did not take to Ahn’Ahna Jew M’Ahniex immediately. Everyone was used to tele-series, such as F’Bahar Wiehed and Il-Madonna Tac-Coqqa. Then there was a hiatus where people eagerly awaited yet another series. When we hit the air-waves people were expecting a new story, they tried to grasp the plot to Ahn’Ahna Jew M’Ahniex and eventually discovered there was no real plot. However, the show soon took hold and became a household name.

Vince Fabri interviewed by Stanley Borg for the Times of Malta

Listen to the music of Vince Fabri here

Visual heritage lost - The National TV station PBS authorised the erasure of Ahn'Ahna Jew M'Ahniex programmes to save on tapes.