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The Cork Midsummer Festival is a much- needed carnival for the city, from fun in the park to DIY circus, to theatre in unusual sites, writes Mary Leland

WHATEVER ELSE might be said in favour of the Cork Midsummer Festival - and there's a lot to be said in its favour - it can't be denied that it brings out the young audiences in their good-humoured thousands. And, for young, read beginning with the soother brigade; opening with the Lord Mayor's Picnic in the Park, this public carnival in sunny weather in the flowery, tree-shaded, riverside Fitzgerald's Park was the kind of family event which induces a widespread sense of enjoyment, expectation and tolerance even of the unexpected. The question for festival director William Galinsky was whether that mood could last for the entire three weeks. So far it has been maintained with such enthusiasm that the new presentations of this final week are awaited with an eagerness equal to that of the first.