Armchair critic: The Verdicts

It seems like a while ago, but in the March issue of Showtime we asked you to vote for your top three theatre productions in the Maltese Islands. The results were interesting, to put it mildly. And... your favourite production of the 2007 - 2008 season was, wait for it... The Manoel Theatre's production of Mario Philip Azzopardi's 30-year-old comedy Sulari Fuq Strada Stretta. It was particularly gratifying that you singled out a play written and performed in the vernacular.

And this after the original play had been banned by a previous Manoel Theatre Board of management. Second up... by a short head... was the MADC panto Pirates of the Mediterranean. Written by and starring Edward Merceica, the general consensus was that this season's Christmas pantomime was not only a thumping good show, it was also a vast improvement on recent MADC pantos. So congratulations all round.

Productions by Masquerade (Doubt), Unifaun (Mercury Fur and Equus) and MADC (Laughing Wild) were also highly rated by you. But you were a lot less forthcoming about the productions you did not rate. Perhaps that's just as well, it has - on the whole - been an excellent theatre season.