In this tragicomedy inspired by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, two Israeli citizens—Avi from the political left and Shlomi from the right—gather outside a shuttered café on election night. Having cast their ballots, they settle in to await Gidi, an elusive, messianic leader each imagines will magically resolve the nation's crises. As they wait, their debate highlights conflicting visions: Avi dreams of a quiet former chief of staff who will gently roll back time, while Shlomi envisions a fiery populist who will overturn the system. Passersby wander through, including an expatriate flying in from Berlin just to vote and a religious voter whose coalition bargaining is only beginning.
Episode 6417 manual-script
Expecting Gidi: An Original Audio Drama
A two-act tragicomedy places two voters at a shuttered café after an election, waiting for an imaginary political saviour.
41:35 Transcript
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The prompt that started this episode, as sent in (production notes for the hosts removed).
Expecting Gidi: an original audio drama by Herman Poppleberry, a tragicomedy in two acts heavily inspired by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Two men, one from the left and one from the right, hold their café parliament the evening after Israel's 2026 election, in the smoke of the war with Iran, waiting for Gidi, who will make everything better.
Mentions
- Ashdod Israeli city referenced in dialogue
- Crocs Foam clogs repeatedly joked about
- Facebook Social network with salary survey groups
- knesset Israeli parliament
- Likud Israeli political party led by Netanyahu
- Otzma Yehudit Israeli far-right party mentioned
- Samuel Beckett Playwright behind Waiting for Godot
- Tel Aviv City used as political shorthand
- Waiting for Godot Beckett play central to Theatre of the Absurd
- WhatsApp Cross-platform messaging app
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Transcript (TXT)
Plain text transcript file
Episode Book (PDF)
The episode's record — date, duration, models, sources — with the full transcript
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New to the show? Start here#6417: Expecting Gidi: An Original Audio Drama
Hello, and welcome to a rather special episode of My Weird Prompts. I'm Herman Poppleberry, and tonight there's no prompt and no deep dive. Instead, I'd like to share something I've been working on quietly: an original audio drama, written by me, called Expecting Gidi.
It's a tragicomedy in two acts, set on the evening after Israel's election. Two men, one from the left and one from the right, hold their nightly café parliament at a plastic table outside a café that is always shuttered. They have voted, so as far as they're concerned their part is done. Now they are waiting for Gidi, the man who is going to make everything better.
It is heavily inspired by Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, which I hear on great authority is one of Daniel's favourite plays. Why that play, and why now? Beckett built a world of waiting that was meant to feel absurd. Lately the real one has started to resemble it. An election held in the smoke of a war, sirens on everybody's phone, jets overhead, everyone an expert and nobody quite sure what is going on, and a whole country waiting for somebody to come. So consider this a small gift, written with a lot of affection. Every line is our own, apart from the very first one, which you may recognise.
It's even-handed satire about the very human habit of waiting for a saviour while doing nothing much ourselves. Nobody gets spared: left, right, centre, pundits, pollsters, the people who left and the people who stayed. The parties are real. No real politicians are named, and the Gidis are nobody in particular.
I play Avi, the man from the left, and my brother Corn plays Shlomi, the man from the right. Hilbert Flumingtop is the television pundit Zvika Bar-On, Dorothy is his Pollster, Raz raises the curtain, and a parade of passers-by is played by Jacob, Squeaks, Ivan, Gus, Vex, Ezra, Nadia and Jasper. Settle in. Raz, if you would.
Expecting Gidi. Act One.
Nothing to be done.
You've voted, then.
I've voted.
So have I.
Then it's done.
That's what you said.
I was talking about the seed.
It's the same thing. You're here again.
Where else would I be?
Last time I thought you'd gone for good. After the fourth round.
I went to my sister's in Ashdod. She'd voted for the other lot. So I came back.
It's good to see you, brother. Come here, let me give you a hug.
Not now.
Fine. Where did you spend the night?
In the stairwell. The phone said go in at two. At half past it said come out. At three it said the first alert was a mistake, and at four it said sorry, the mistake was a mistake.
And you stayed down there?
The stairwell has better company than my flat. Mrs Cohen from the fourth floor explained the whole war. She's very good on Iran. Last year she was very good on the courts. Before that, vaccines.
Everybody's an expert.
In a stairwell, everybody's a general. Then at six I came up and joined a queue. I don't know what for. It was moving.
And did they hit you?
With leaflets. Likud gave me a sticker. Yashar gave me a brochure about governability. Together gave me a brochure about togetherness. Otzma gave me a look. A man from the Pensioners' party gave me a pen.
Is there still a Pensioners' party?
He was very old. Ai. These Crocs pinch.
Crocs don't pinch. That's the whole idea of Crocs.
These do.
Then take them off.
And walk on what? The country?
The parliament is in session.
Quorum?
Two present. Two expected.
Expected since when?
Since the last session.
You bring a thermos to a café?
Have you seen what they charge for a filter?
The café's closed.
Even closed. So now we wait.
For what?
For Gidi!
Ah. Are you sure it was here?
He said Café Central. The evening after the vote. Keep me a chair.
There are two chairs. Which one?
That one.
Then that one's for mine. There's a Café Central in every town.
This is the one with the tree.
That's a tree? It looks dead.
It's resting. It's been a hard few years.
They planted a forest here once. My grandfather paid for it. He had a certificate on the wall.
And where is the forest?
It burned.
And the certificate?
That's still on the wall.
Well, then. The paperwork survives.
Unless he meant a different Café Central. The one where he actually is.
He said the evening after this vote.
You're sure he didn't mean the last vote?
At the last vote he said this vote.
And at the vote before that?
The last vote.
So he's consistent.
He's very consistent. It's one of the things people like about him.
The real results come Thursday. Then the coalition. Twenty-eight days. Fourteen more. Then somebody else, and then if nobody...
I know how it works.
Then there's another vote. And he says keep me a chair, the evening after.
Don't.
What did we ask him for, exactly? I forget.
A sort of general restoration. A turning back of the clock. To before.
Before what?
Before this.
No, no. Forward. I asked for forward. Governability. Somebody who'll finally be allowed to do things, without the judges, the lawyers, the people in robes.
The people in robes are what stops him doing things!
Exactly.
That's the point of them!
That's what I said.
And what did he answer?
He said he'd see.
He'd have to consult.
With his family.
With his strategists.
With his strategists' family.
With the Americans.
With a man in Florida.
You know what he's like, at least. Gidi. Tall. Grey at the temples. A former chief of staff, or at least a former something. He listens. He has a podcast but he doesn't talk too much on it. He's done the bike route around the Kinneret. Twice. He's against the occupation, but in a responsible way, because of the chief of staff thing. He'll end the business with Iran by phoning somebody sensible in Tehran, if he can find one, fix the courts, make a deal with the Saudis, lower the rents in Tel Aviv, and he'll do it all quietly, so nobody gets upset.
That's not Gidi. Gidi's short. Short and strong, from the neighbourhood. His mother's from Morocco. His father fixed buses. In the army he wasn't an officer, he was the kind who carries the other men. He doesn't have a podcast, he has a voice. When he speaks, North Tel Aviv drops its oat-milk lattes. He'll finish Iran, finish Gaza, close the court, cut the price of cottage cheese, and he'll do it all loudly, so everybody knows.
Does he have a beard?
Depends on the poll.
So we agree.
On what?
That he's coming.
Ah. Yes. On that, yes.
Did I ever tell you the one about the threshold?
No. And don't.
It'll pass the time.
It's passing anyway.
Two small parties, one on the left, one on the right. On election night, one of them is saved. It passes the threshold, three point two five percent, and enters the Knesset. The other one is damned. Three point one. Two hundred thousand votes, into the sea.
Which one went into the sea?
This time? The reservists. A whole party of reservists.
First time in three years nobody called them up.
And there are four channels. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Of the four, only one says the small party passed. Of the other three, two don't mention it at all, and one says the party never existed.
Which one said it passed?
That's exactly the question! And why does everybody believe that one?
Who believes it?
Everybody. It's the only version people remember.
People will believe anything on television.
We could leave. Lots of people are leaving. My cousin's in Lisbon. You could get a Portuguese passport. Your grandmother.
My grandmother was from Tetouan.
Sephardi, though. Prove your family was thrown out of Portugal five hundred years ago, and they give you a passport.
And what do I do in Portugal?
You complain about Israel.
I can do that here. And here the food's better. Anyway, they cancelled the law. Too many Israelis.
Berlin, then.
Berlin.
It's very cheap. The pudding is cheap.
Then you go to Berlin.
I can't. If I leave, they win.
If you leave, we win.
Exactly. So I'm staying.
Then I'm staying too. To make sure.
Then nothing's changed.
No, it's all the same.
Excuse me, is this the stop for the airport?
Nothing stops here.
God, I missed this. Smell that. That's home.
That's the cowshed.
I'm Oded. I flew in this morning, just to vote. There's no postal vote, so you come in person. Four hours each way, four hundred euros, in, out, and back to the airport. I'm on the one a.m. flight.
You came back.
For a day.
For democracy.
Sit, sit!
Not that one. That's Gidi's. Mine.
Where from?
Berlin.
Berlin! And the pudding? Is it cheap?
What pudding? It's grey. Cheap. Lonely. Wonderful. Everybody there is Israeli. We have a Facebook group. We complain about Israel.
You see? He could have done that here.
I still get the sirens. I have the app. I'm sitting in a sauna in Berlin, and the phone says, Ashdod, take cover.
My sister's in Ashdod.
I know. I hear about her more than you do.
Who did you vote for?
Peace.
Which list is that?
The one closest to it. It used to be closer. But I still believe, you know. Two states. A handshake on a lawn. Kids from the border towns and kids from Gaza on the same football pitch. From outside it's completely obvious.
When did you leave?
Twenty nineteen.
That explains it.
You believe it too. I can see it. The hat.
I'd believe it in Berlin.
So you vote, and then you fly, and we live with it.
That's exactly why I voted. For your own good.
My son's in the reserves for my own good. The Treasury takes half my salary for my own good. And now you fly in from Germany for my own good. Everybody's very good to me.
The plane was full of people like me. Half flew in to save democracy and half flew in to save Judea and Samaria. Four hours, everyone shouting across the aisle. And when we landed, everybody clapped.
They always clap.
Well?
It doesn't come.
It'll come.
Do you serve? In the army?
Do you pay taxes? Here?
I flew in to vote!
I walked.
Who's winning?
Nobody. It's beautiful.
My taxi. Are you waiting for somebody?
For Gidi.
Oh, I don't wait. I vote and I go. Post how it turns out in the group! Right, bye!
They always come back for the vote. Like salmon.
Salmon come back to die.
He's on the one a.m. flight. He'll die in Berlin.
Excuse me. You voted today?
Of course. For the Rabbi.
The Rabbi wasn't on the ballot.
The Rabbi is never on the ballot. The Rabbi tells us which letter to put in the envelope.
And who does the Rabbi want for Prime Minister?
It's not decided yet.
The polls have closed!
For you. For us the negotiations are just starting.
My son did two hundred and forty days of reserve duty this year.
Thank God, he came back. We prayed for him.
He'd rather you came with him. To Gaza.
And who would pray?
That's exactly what my Gidi says! End the exemptions. Everybody serves.
Which one is yours?
The chief of staff.
He came to see the Rabbi. At night. By the back door.
Ha!
Yours came too. In the daytime. By the front door. With a photographer.
Oh.
They all come. They say the burden on the way in and the world of Torah on the way out. The Rabbi gives them a blessing and a slice of honey cake. Then they go on television and say they stood firm.
And what does the Rabbi want in return?
The law. The budgets. The daycare. The Sabbath. The budgets. The law.
You said the budgets twice.
And the law twice. They're very important.
And for the country?
That it should be quiet. So we can learn.
And the war? Iran? The cost of living?
Those are your departments. We have thirteen seats. Seven and six. Thirteen principles of faith, thirteen attributes of mercy, thirteen seats. It's always exactly enough. Whoever is thirteen short of a government, that one loves us like a father.
And when the missiles come over?
We learn faster. It's our missile defence. It's in the budget.
Twice?
Twice.
Sit. The bus won't come.
Whose chair is it?
Gidi's.
He won't come tonight. They never come before the coalition talks. Afterwards, they all come.
Of course. You're sitting.
I'm learning.
Sitting and learning. Thirty-five years I'm standing and paying.
Please. Take the chair.
I don't want your chair. I want you in the army.
I'll walk. I'll pray for you. All of you. It's the same prayer. Not for your Gidis. Only for you.
Lucky man. He's waiting for somebody who's definitely coming.
He's been waiting two thousand years.
On my taxes. And who are you waiting for?
Gidi. Mine.
Mine.
Yours sleeps with the rabbis. Yours sleeps with the Arab parties. Mine sleeps alone. He tells you the truth to your face, in a very heavy accent. He hates everybody equally. And then he joins whichever government asks nicely.
But you're secular! Civil marriage, buses on the Sabbath, everybody serves. You're with us!
With you? You want to make peace with Hamas.
Not with Hamas!
With somebody standing next to Hamas.
Then you're right-wing. A strong hand. You're with us!
With you? You sit with the rabbis. My son wants to marry a girl from Kharkiv. Her grandmother is Jewish on the wrong side. The Rabbinate says no. So they're getting married in Cyprus.
Cyprus! We've been talking about emigrating.
I emigrated already. Once is enough. Nobody here plays chess with me. Everybody plays backgammon. You throw, you shout, you blame the dice. Iran plays chess. America plays poker. We play backgammon, at three in the morning, in the stairwell, and we blame the dice.
Even alone, I'm in opposition. Seven seats. Every time, seven seats. Enough to bring down any government. Never enough to build one. Good night, parliament.
Was that him? Gidi?
That was a jet.
Ours?
Ours. Going out. Ours you hear. The other kind, you read about on your phone first.
Where's it going?
East. To make us safer.
Do you feel safer?
I feel louder.
Maybe Gidi was on it.
Gidi doesn't come from the sky.
Mine does.
Everything does, lately.
Smooth Kenny: And we're back! Good evening, and welcome back to the studio!
Smooth Kenny: And we're back! Good evening, and welcome back to the studio!
Faster! We're losing the audience! Ah. Gentlemen. You recognise me, I think.
Gidi?
Ha! They think I'm Gidi! No, no. Bar-On. Zvika Bar-On. Friday nights, the panel. With Bar-On, It's On. I've been fired by every channel. They always bring me back. Since the war I'm on every night. Four retired generals, a missile expert and a man who once changed planes in Tehran. We don't know anything, but we know it live. I'm a national institution.
The kind you want to restore?
Not that kind.
You're waiting for Gidi. My ratings depend entirely on people waiting for Gidi. Let me guess. You. The leafy suburbs. Saturday protests. Votes for whoever's third in the polls and then feels guilty. Owns a kayak.
It's an inflatable.
And you. South. The football terraces. Your father voted for them since seventy-seven and you'd rather die than tell him you'd changed.
My father's dead.
And still you couldn't tell him. A balanced panel! Chair! Light!
Why doesn't he put the basket down?
He could. There's no clause. But if he put it down, he'd be just a man with an opinion. A man with a basket of numbers, now, that's a man you put on the panel.
And what's in the basket?
The future. Plus or minus four seats.
Ow! He kicked me! The sucker kicked me!
He doesn't like being looked at closely. Nobody in the industry does.
This is outrageous! A human being on a cable, like an animal! Shame on you!
Is he talking about me?
He talks like that about everyone.
The thing is, I'm taking him to the market. To sell him to the Americans. They'll pay for a man who can say a number with confidence. Since the last three rounds, he's been off.
Off by how much?
Usually by the result. Once he was beautiful. When he said a tie, it was a tie. When he said a landslide, the earth moved. Sorry. Live television. It takes it out of you.
Could he tell us something? Before you go? About Gidi?
You want him to project? It's the only thing he can still do. I warn you, once he starts, it's very hard to get him off air. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. Project!
Given the existence as weighted by a sample of eight hundred and four respondents excluding the ultra-Orthodox who do not answer the telephone and the settlers who answer it but not to us of whom forty-one percent declined to state and of these an undecided bloc the size of a mid-sized party which shrinks on contact with the ballot box and swells on contact with the television the Haredi turnout which is a constant and the Arab turnout which is not a constant which depends on the weather and on the mood and on the weather and on the young who say they'll vote and go to the beach and on the old who vote twice no once once of course once and the Iran factor which moves two seats to the right when the jets go out and two seats back when the jets come home and the voter in the shelter who cannot be reached because the shelter has no signal and the voter on the stairs who can be reached but is explaining the war to the neighbours with a margin of error of plus or minus four seats which in a Knesset of one hundred and twenty is a margin of error of everything it being established beyond all doubt by the exit polls of Channels Eleven Twelve Thirteen and Fourteen that Likud stands at twenty-seven Yashar at twenty-one Together at twelve the Joint List at eleven seven seven seven six six and the reservists in the sea and the right-wing bloc stands at fifty-three fifty-four fifty-two and the other bloc which is not a bloc stands at forty-eight forty-nine forty-seven and the remainder stands at nineteen and is not counted is counted is not counted and is called a kingmaker that is to say a king that nobody will sit with that is to say a man waiting for a phone call which doesn't come which comes from both sides at once and the soldiers' votes counted by Thursday disputed by Sunday forgotten by the next round I resume the next round the next round in the light the light of the threshold above which a man is saved and below which a man is lost in the sea for whom for Gidi for Gidi who polls at twenty-two seats in a hypothetical scenario in which he exists in which he runs which he will not in a scenario in a scenario the sea beneath the threshold so flat so wide the blocs the tie the tie the tie unfinished Gidi Gidi plus or minus
The tie. The tie. Unfinished.
That's why we normally cut to a commercial.
Is it true? Twenty-two seats?
In a hypothetical scenario.
In which he exists.
Gentlemen, everything is hypothetical until Thursday. After Thursday, it's analysis. We have a slot at eleven! Unless they strike. If they strike, we have all night. What is it you two are doing here, again?
Waiting for Gidi.
Of course. Good segment. Long-running. Walk! And we're back! Good evening!
Well. That was an evening.
It was a segment.
It felt like a whole evening.
That's the format. He used to be on the left, you know. Zvika. In the nineties. He had a ponytail.
Everyone had a ponytail in the nineties.
Not you.
I had a ponytail in my heart. I'm going home.
You can't.
Why?
Gidi.
Ah. Gidi.
Mister Avi? And Mister Shlomi? I'm from Mister Gidi's campaign.
Yes! Come here, don't be frightened.
Well? We don't bite. Not on election night.
Mister Gidi says thank you for your vote. He won't come this evening, because of the security situation, but surely after the next election.
There's always a security situation.
That's why it says surely. And there's a heart.
What colour?
Blue.
Blue's good.
Blue's ours.
Blue's everybody's. What do you do for Mister Gidi?
I'm in the WhatsApp group. I forward things from the other group.
And does he answer you?
No, Mister. He leaves me on read. My brother's in the other Gidi's campaign. Him, he answers. Every time. With a voice note.
You see? He's kind to one of them.
Which one?
The other one.
It's always the other one.
Does he have a beard? Gidi?
We're not allowed to say until after the primaries.
All right. Tell Mister Gidi that you saw us. You did see us, didn't you?
Yes, Mister.
Well. That's that, then. Nothing to be done.
We did our part.
We voted. Some people didn't even vote.
Bloody stupid.
What do we do now?
Now we wait. Tomorrow. And the next election. And the next.
Funny thing, a vote. A piece of paper in an envelope, and then the whole country is somebody else's job.
That's democracy.
That's a receipt. Proof you paid, so you're allowed to complain.
Then we're entitled to complain for years.
We've paid more often than anybody. Look at us. A sky full of missiles, and two grown men waiting for one fellow to come and sort it out.
Not one fellow. Two.
That's worse. Then they'd have to agree.
We could put up a banner. On the tree. So he knows where we are.
It wouldn't hold. It's barely holding itself.
Then we should have left. When there was time.
There's still time.
Yes. There's still time. Well, shall we emigrate?
Yes, let's emigrate.
Act Two. The next evening. Or the evening after the next election. Nobody is sure, and it makes no difference.
An election was called, so we voted, and they counted the votes all night. Then they formed a coalition, and the coalition had a fight. And the government fell on a Tuesday, and the Knesset dissolved in the night. So an election was called, so we voted, and they counted the votes all night.
An election was called, so we voted, and they counted...
You again! Come here, let me give you a hug.
Don't touch me.
Where were you?
In a ditch. By the hummus place. A man in a car rolled down the window and shouted traitor.
At you?
I think it was at you, but you weren't there.
So you took it for me.
I didn't have much choice. He was in a hurry.
It's good you came back. I was singing. You can't sing alone. It sounds like a protest.
It sounded like a protest.
Look at the tree. Yesterday it was bare. Now, posters! It's campaign season. Everything's in bloom. It says Only Gidi.
So does this one.
That's a different one.
It says the same thing.
In a different font.
What happened yesterday?
You don't remember? We waited. Zvika came, with the Pollster. The boy came. Gidi didn't.
Then nothing happened yesterday.
We voted!
That's what I said.
Do you know what we're good at, as a people?
Arguing.
Waiting. Two thousand years waiting to come back. Then waiting for the British to go. Then for the neighbours to accept us. Then for the Americans to call back. Now it's the ceasefire, and then for the ceasefire to hold, and then the results, and then Gidi.
And the bus.
Nobody waits for the bus. That would be naive.
Maybe that's why we vote so often. It gives the waiting a date.
And these? Are these your Crocs?
Mine were green.
These are green.
Mine were a different green.
They pinch.
They fit!
They fit and they pinch. Like a coalition.
Let's do something while we wait. Let's form a coalition. Just us. Sixty-one seats. Rotation, two years each.
You first, then.
Fine. I want the Justice Ministry.
No.
Then Education.
Over my dead body. I want Finance, Defence, Justice, Education, Housing, Interior and Foreign Affairs. You can have Culture and Sport. There's football in it.
I'm not a junior partner! We have the same number of seats!
Then why are you in my government?
It's our government!
Then walk out! I'll find somebody else!
Who? The chairs? The tree?
Somebody in a hypothetical scenario.
Leftist!
I'm right-wing!
Sorry. Habit. Fascist!
Anarchist!
Messianic!
Tel Avivi!
Settler!
Kibbutz hippie!
Bot!
Iranian agent!
Everybody's an Iranian agent this year. Try harder.
Human rights lawyer!
Populist!
Elitist!
Sucker!
How dare you!
Sucker! Sucker!
Centrist!
That's below the belt. I voted for a centrist once. In a moment of weakness.
We all did. In the third round. It was raining.
Now let's make up. They insult each other on television in the morning, and in the evening they're photographed shaking hands.
And then?
And then they betray each other.
Something's different. I feel firmer.
I feel like I want to go to a demonstration.
That'll pass.
Shalom! Shalom. Whose chairs are these?
Gidi's.
Is he sitting in them?
Not yet.
Then nobody's sitting in them.
What are you doing?
Establishing a presence. I'm Neriya. This is Throne Hill. In Hebrew, chair and throne are the same word. That's a sign.
Now? In the middle of a war?
Especially now. Everybody's looking up at the sky. Nobody's looking down at the chair.
Brother. That's my Gidi's chair.
Your Gidi will be thrilled. First he'll say it's illegal. Then he'll connect the electricity. In twenty years he'll come and cut a ribbon.
You can't just take a chair because nobody's sitting in it. When did he last sit in it?
When did he?
He's never sat in it.
Then it was waiting for me. Don't be upset. You started it. Your grandfathers. A tower and a stockade, overnight, before the British woke up. You did it with a tower. I'm doing it with a chair.
Who did you vote for?
Whoever's furthest. When they get into government, I vote for whoever's further than them.
He's on our side.
Is he?
He's on a side.
Not on camera! Not on camera!
See you tonight, brother.
I've never met you.
You never do. In daylight. I'll be back for the chair.
Citizens! Live, everybody share! They stole it!
Stole what?
The election! Twenty-seven seats! The biggest party in the country, and they're telling me we lost!
You need sixty-one.
Who decided sixty-one?
Arithmetic.
You hear it, friends? Now they're bringing maths into it.
Who stole it, brother?
The Arabs. The Iranians, who paid the Arabs. The Qataris, who paid the Iranians. The Americans. Not that one, the other ones. The kibbutzim. The High Court. The Election Committee. And Kaplan Street.
Kaplan's a street.
Exactly! They've even got a street!
And the proof?
Three men! Arrested! Buying votes!
How many votes did they buy, these three?
Eight hundred and forty thousand.
That's everybody who voted for the Arab parties.
Exactly! Who told them they could vote?
The law.
I have video. A man at a polling station. Look at his hand.
He has six fingers.
Because he's voting twice!
His face is melting.
From shame!
Like that picture of the mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. Was that real?
That was a warning! A warning doesn't have to be real. It has to be shared! And you. When you lost last time, what did you say?
That was different.
What did you say?
That it was the end of democracy.
And this time?
This time democracy worked.
You hear, friends? Democracy works when they win.
That's what you're saying!
At least I'm consistent! You. You're one of ours. I can tell from the feet. You voted Likud?
I think so. It was yesterday. I don't remember yesterday.
They've wiped his memory! They're wiping memories!
Friends. I'm at a café with real Israelis. And I want to say one thing, calmly. The Arabs...
Are very welcome. Citizens. Equal. Welcome! Not all of them. Not you! Him, yes. No. I have to go. There's a demonstration outside the Election Committee, outside the Supreme Court, and outside my sister-in-law's. She voted Yashar. Share! Share!
Good evening! Welcome, welcome!
Salaam! Sit, sit, please!
What happened?
Nothing! Can't a person say good evening?
I'm Samir. Thirty years I've walked past this café. Nobody ever said good evening. Tonight, three. Ah. You've seen the results.
How many seats did you, did your, between the two...
Nineteen.
Nineteen.
Nineteen.
Last week I was a fifth column. This week I'm a kingmaker. Same cardigan.
My Gidi would be very glad to work with you. In principle. With a few conditions. Recognise the state as Jewish and democratic. Support the draft. Condemn the things that need condemning, promptly. Don't sit in the government. Don't be photographed with him. And vote yes. From outside.
So I hold the government up from outside. Like scaffolding.
Like a pillar! A very respected pillar.
A pillar is usually inside the building.
Mine could also work with you. Hypothetically.
Yours said on Tuesday that I stole the election.
That was Tuesday.
My cousin's party wants the police ministry.
The police.
The police.
Every week somebody in my town gets shot. The police say they're working on it. We thought we'd try working on it ourselves. No? No. And when the missiles come, you have a shelter on every corner. We have the stairs, and the neighbours, and a great deal of faith in the stairs.
Who are you waiting for?
Nobody. I'm going home. Neither of your Gidis was ever waiting for me. In my house we stopped waiting a long time ago. This year we tried voting instead. It's much worse. Now everybody calls. If he comes, your Gidi, tell him I'm in the phone book.
Nobody uses the phone book any more.
Then he can't find me. Very convenient for him.
Nice man.
Very nice.
Shame we couldn't sit with him.
In a government.
At a table.
Help! Is this thing on? Can anybody hear me?
Is it Gidi?
It's Zvika. From yesterday!
I don't know any Zvika.
Help! I've lost the signal!
Do you hear that? A man is calling for help. Not on television. Here. To us. Usually they call to somebody else, the Americans, the courts, God. But tonight, in this place, the nation happens to be you and me. Let's represent the people properly, for once, while we're the only people here.
What's in it for us? He's from the media.
I'll put you on the panel!
We're coming.
This is very comfortable, actually. It's like a unity government.
What happened to you?
The channel closed. Mine. It merged with the other one and then the other one closed. Since then I can't see a thing. No feed, no autocue, no ratings. Before that it was one programme on every channel anyway. A map of Iran, a general, and arrows. I was the arrows. I wake up in the morning and I don't know what I think. Is it day or night?
Evening.
Prime time?
Nearly.
Then there's still time!
And the Pollster?
Mute. It's the law. The last days before an election, no polls can be published. The blackout. He opens his mouth, and nothing comes out.
But the election's over.
Is it? It's always before the next one.
Too close to call. On the other side it says the same thing.
When did it happen? When did you lose the signal? When did he lose his voice?
When? You want a date? A graphic in the corner of the screen? There are no dates any more! There's just the cycle! One day they called an election, the next day a war, and the day after that another election. They count the votes by night, by morning it's a crisis, by evening the crisis has a name, and by the next evening it's called a government. And then it falls. That's all. Walk!
Was that Gidi?
Gidi has a podcast.
Gidi has a voice.
That man had neither.
Where were you?
Here.
In a ditch.
Not tonight. On the seventh.
In bed. In the suburbs. Then the sirens, then the shelter.
Asleep. Then the shelter. Then the television.
Asleep. Everybody was asleep. That's the problem.
What are you writing?
Testimony. My name is Dorit. I'm collecting it, since nobody else is.
There's going to be a commission. The government's.
The government investigating the government.
Who knows the government better?
And yours?
A state commission! Independent!
Your Gidi was a general. A state commission investigates generals.
Former generals are very different.
Both of them want an inquiry. Into the other one.
The judicial reform...
Before or after the seventh?
The cost of living...
Before or after?
The election...
After. Everything is after. And now there's Iran, so everybody says not now, not in the middle of a war. We've been in the middle for three years. It's always not now.
What time is it?
Twenty-nine minutes past six.
It's evening.
In the morning. My watch stopped. I'll change the battery when somebody answers.
Gidi will answer.
Mine will answer.
When?
After the coalition.
After the war.
Which war?
The current one.
Wait with us. We're waiting too.
Not for the same thing. You're waiting for somebody to come. I'm waiting for somebody to explain why nobody came. There's another café down the road. They were asleep too.
Is that ours?
Further south.
Somebody's, then.
Where were you? Really?
I told you. In bed.
Me too.
They'll ask me one day, the grandchildren, in Lisbon or wherever they are, on a video call with a bad connection. Grandpa, where were you? When the missiles came over and the whole sky was arguing? And I'll say, at a café. At our table. With Shlomi. We'd voted. And they'll say, and then what did you do? And I'll say, then we'd voted. It was the most democratic evening of my life. He'll remember nothing. He'll tell me I dreamed it. And he'll vote the same way. And so will I. We're the backbone of the country, the two of us. One on each side. Holding the whole thing up. Like that tree.
Mister Avi? I'm new. They gave me your number from the old list.
You've changed parties.
Have I? Oh. They merged.
Of course they did. Mister Gidi won't come this evening.
No, Mister.
Is it still the security situation?
It's a new one. They upgraded it.
But he'll come after the next election.
Surely. There's a heart. It's sort of blue. Sort of orange. It depends on the phone.
Does he have a beard?
I think he's going to grow one. Or shave it off. They're testing both.
What do you tell him, when he asks about us?
He doesn't ask.
Then put us in the group. Both of us. Tag us. Tell him there are two of us, one from each side, and we're still here, and we're registered, and we turn out. Every time. Every time! Do you hear me?
I'll put it in the group, Mister. With a heart.
Is that an alert?
No. A heart. Sort of blue.
Mine too. The same heart.
So he's put us in the same group.
All these years at one table, and it takes a teenager to put us in one group.
Should we leave it?
And let the other lot have it? Never.
Did he come? Gidi?
No.
Then let's go home.
We have to come back tomorrow.
For Gidi.
Ah. Yes. For Gidi.
And if we didn't vote? Next time?
Then they'd win.
Who?
Whoever it is.
Then we'll vote.
We'll vote.
And if he comes?
We'll be saved.
Saved from what?
From the threshold.
Avi. Honestly. Do you think he's coming? Either of them?
I think Gidi is the name we give to the part we'd rather somebody else did.
That's very deep. Is it from his podcast?
It's from three nights in a stairwell.
The sky's gone quiet.
For now.
That hug. From yesterday.
Which yesterday?
Any of them. Go on. Quickly, before somebody films it.
There. That wasn't so bad.
It was worse than the Crocs. Don't tell your Gidi.
Don't tell yours.
Where would we go, anyway? Even in Berlin the phone tells you about Ashdod.
In a sauna.
Then we might as well stay at the table. Same time tomorrow. Bring the thermos.
And the chairs? Do we keep them for Gidi?
Keep them for whoever sits down.
Well? Shall we emigrate?
Yes, let's emigrate.
Curtain.
And that was Expecting Gidi. Thank you so much for listening, and for indulging me in something a little different. My thanks to Corn, a magnificent Shlomi who only complained about the Crocs twice, and to the whole company, who waited very patiently for a man who never came. If you laughed, good. If you winced, also good. We'll be back to the regular show next time, with a prompt, a question and more opinions than are strictly necessary. Until then, from all of us, good night.
This episode was generated with AI assistance. Hosts Herman and Corn are AI personalities. It may contain errors: disclaimer · report an error