You'd think we live in Sweden

Actually, that's a Damien Hirst - and next week, he's going to stuff George Debono and sell him to Renzo Piano to finance this year's opera season

Somebody on timesofmalta.com has compared the theatre plans to an aquarium. Then he complained that he can’t imagine sitting there with the rain pelting down. If you’re sitting in an aquarium, I can’t see that any amount of rain would make a difference, but if you’re looking for rational thought on that particular comments-board, you’re going to be hard put to find it.

To listen to the Arrogant Army rant about the ‘cabrio theatre’ – oh har har har – you’d think we live in Sweden, not further south than Tunis. It might rain! It might blow! Pigeons might crap on the seats!

Yes, and thousands of people descend on Verona several times a year for the pleasure of sitting in its ancient open theatre while listening to performances there. It’s OK for Verona – and so very many other places where it rains far more than it does here – but it’s not OK for Valletta.

The idea of a fine-weather theatre in the same way that the Manoel and the Mediterranean Conference Centre are foul-weather theatres – performances are not held at either place in the summer – has not occurred to them. They actually believe they are going to be sitting there shivering in December and January, when they don’t sit and swelter at the Manoel in July and August.

This country is missing another theatre. It’s missing an open-air theatre, because there isn’t one. And that’s why our squares and other open-air venues are turned into makeshift performance zones between May and September, when nobody wants to sit inside.