How to become an Albanian superstar
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Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis, the host of Politics Now. And throughout the week on the podcast, I'm joined by the brightest political minds at the ABC to wade through the political spin and bring you the analysis you need to know. We go beyond the headlines, digging into the key political stories of the day and making sure we have a little bit of fun along the way. I don't think it's an aberration. I don't think it's just temporary. I think politics is being smashed and anyone who thinks... that it's just a passing thing, is completely deluded.
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Delulu. It's called Politics Now and you can find it on ABC Listen.
This podcast was produced on the lands of the Wabakal and Gadigal people. G'day, Matt Bevan here. This is If You're Listening. In Thursday's episode, we talked about Albania's very strange media environment during the Cold War under the Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, which led to generations of Albanians learning Italian from watching Italian TV broadcasts they picked up on giant, wobbly, homemade aerials. Basically, Albania wasn't producing any entertainment programming whatsoever, so if they wanted to be entertained with their TVs, they needed to pick up Italian broadcasts. The Italians had no idea they were doing this. Today, we're talking about a man who was, without knowing it, one of the most famous people in Albania, and how attempts by governments to control the media consumed by their citizens can have unexpected consequences.
I do not know this story. Adair Shepherd does. She's our producer, and she's here to tell me. G'day, Adair.
Hello.
I also found out when we were talking about this episode that we have an unexpectedly high viewership in the Philippines.
Yeah, particularly on YouTube. YouTube is particularly good at finding us new audiences in other countries. Often we find that when we talk about a particular country, a lot of people in that country will watch our episode, you know. We did an episode about Canada and a lot of Canadians watched it.
Yeah, yeah.
We also did an episode about Solomon Islands. And from what I can tell, I think every single person in the Solomon Islands must have watched that episode. But people in the Philippines seem to watch us no matter what we're talking about, whether we're talking about them or not.
Hopefully we crack the Albanian market with this one. So this story starts in Tirana in 2001.
So Tirana, that's the capital of Albania.
The capital of Albania. In 2001, with a training session ahead of two England versus Albania qualifying matches for the men's FIFA World Cup.
Right.
Can you identify the two people in this video?
No.
That's David Beckham. I can identify him. Yeah. Do you know who the other person is? The older man? Yeah. No, I don't know that man, no.
Okay. In 2001, Beckham was the captain of the England team. He had just married Posh Spice. It was pretty peak fame. He was a massive deal. Yeah. But apparently when they walked out onto the pitch, that man, who was 80 years old, he drew massive applause from the audience and a far larger reaction than Beckham did.
Than Beckham?
Yes. He's a comedian called Norman Wisdom. Do you know who that is?
I've never heard of this man, no.
How did Norman Wisdom unexpectedly become famous in Albania?
Well, could you describe that picture?
He looks like he's having an incredible time.
Yes.
He's very excited. He always does look like that. He is wearing a jersey that appears to be the Albanian national team's jersey and the England national team's jersey sewn together.
Yes. So he is actually 86 in this photo. And he went to these qualifying matches. It was only the second time he'd ever been in Albania, but he still wore the half-half jersey because he is a massive cult figure in Albania.
David Wisdom. Norman Wisdom. Norman, I don't even know his name. Norman Wisdom. Okay.
And when he walked out onto the pitch, he tripped over and apparently the crowd absolutely erupted.
He tripped over? Yeah. Yes. Did he trip over because he actually tripped over or did he trip over because that's a thing that he does?
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