We would like to sincerely congratulate the Valletta Capital City of Culture 2018 organisers for the show they put up on Saturday.

The enormous crowd that flocked to see must have been satisfied by the four shows put up and repeated at specific times to allow all to see at close quarters.

Something far less than congratulations must go to the public transport authorities for the mess they created especially in the late hours of the night. After telling everyone to leave the car at home and use public transport the least one expected was the chaos, the unsupervised queues, and the massive delays that ensued. This chaos seems to happen whenever there is a big and late event in Valletta. At the end, those who disregarded the advice and used their own car were the ones who were rewarded. This ensures that next time around, more people will disregard the advice to leave the car at home, and with reason.

Since Saturday night, the usual naysayers have been hard at work to bring the show to disrepute. The bright sparks have discovered that the acrobatic show put up near the Tritons Fountain is not a Maltese original at all but a show that has been put up in many European cities over the past months.

There is nothing to be ashamed of. The derivation was made clear even on Saturday night itself. And it may be that this street theatre is in turn a derivation from another show. When Liverpool had its Capital City of Culture celebration years back it imported a Belgian street theatre troupe which put up more or less the same show of a larger than life figure dominating over the crowds.

One also notes that the cities which used the show as shown on Saturday were not shy to say they had imported the show nor did it impinge on their national sovereignty.

We also congratulate the acrobats who stayed hanging on to ropes coming down from a crane for hours on end. It was a bitterly cold night on Saturday.

Had it not been for the public transport mess which ruined many people’s aftertaste, it would have been a perfect evening and one that celebrated Malta’s honour as the capital city of culture.

There will be more to say as the Year proceeds, but there will be time for that. It would indeed be a pity if the Year were to peter out over the coming weeks and months or end up with a bright beginning and no end.