Dull and worthy were the two adjectives one could most often apply to public events organised by the Ulster Unionist Party in the past. But all is changed - changed slightly. At yesterday's election manifesto launch in Belfast's Waterfront Hall there were glimmerings and hints of that traditionally non-unionist commodity, razzmatazz. The attention of journalists was drawn to the vista from the glass windows of the theatre bar where a new Belfast was being built before their eyes. Soft music oozed from loudspeakers and candidates did their level best to look modern and dynamic.
Mr Trimble was calm and relaxed and refused to be ruffled by persistent questioning from journalists about his stance on the old chestnut of decommissioning and the new chestnut of when the Assembly executive will be up and running. In the old days he would have been getting hot under the collar with his interrogators, but not any more.
Nothing succeeds like success, they say. The challenge for Trimble will be to transform a fairly successful referendum result into enough seats to make him king of the hill in Northern Ireland politics.
There are sceptics in UUP ranks who doubt he can bring it off and who speculate that the SDLP could even end up as the largest party in the Assembly. David Trimble had gone out on a limb to sell the Belfast Agreement but what if the electoral kudos went to the SDLP? A successful election and a relatively smooth first year in the Assembly would set up Trimble for the rest of his political life, but the sceptics in his own party worry that the Assembly could prove a vehicle for advancing the nationalist agenda. In the wings there is Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, nursing his wounds after a bruising battle in which he failed to be selected as a candidate. Wisely, he has resisted any temptation to kick over the traces, even though observers say he would almost certainly have become a minister had he been "put on". Observers say there is little enough ministerial talent in the UUP election squad and some of the best and brightest are also the most sceptical.
There is a contrary view in the party: the momentum from the referendum was going to carry through to June 25th. People had a sense now that the UUP could make things happen. The new voters who turned out to support the agreement would make a return visit to the polling booths in two weeks' time. The UUP would present itself as the constructive force and its opponents in the unionist camp as wreckers.
The group around Trimble is relaxed and cautiously confident. None of them is predicting anything less than 28 seats in the Assembly, most forecasts hover around the 33 mark and some are going even higher. But they are keeping a weather eye on their old sparring partners in the Democratic Unionist Party, who can be a formidable force in any election campaign.
But word is coming in from all shades of the political spectrum that the punters are bored and the last creatures they want to see on their doorsteps are political canvassers. The World Cup is the subject of consuming interest for the immediate future and nobody expects election issues to catch the public imagination until the last week - if at all. Although there is a handful of "hard Nos" and "soft Nos" on the UUP ticket, there seems to be greater worry about party members standing independently, particularly Mr William Wright in North Antrim and Mr Denis Watson in Upper Bann. The vagaries of Proportional Representation are making this a highly unpredictable election, with the prospect that a pocket of stray transfers could determine the fate of the fifth and sixth seat in several places.
Much will depend on whether SDLP and Alliance voters can persuade themselves the new Trimble is for real and not to be confused with the dancing dervish of the Garvaghy Road. He has stuck with the peace process through crisis after crisis and now stands on the brink of becoming First Minister in a Northern Ireland government. His critics dismiss his comments on crucial issues as fancy footwork and say he will trip himself up eventually but from being an apparently reluctant guest at the peace banquet he has now taken up a position at the head of the table. David Trimble has been praised for his skilful leadership in persuading the Ulster Unionists to accept Good Friday's historic compromise: the next test will be to reach out to the other half of the community and persuade them to bet their transfers that he is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.