AH, Mayfest. Some Glaswegians still miss it: the teeming, unpredictable programme of events each May, the chance to see international acts we might never otherwise have caught, the amusing publicity stunts that sometimes crossed our paths.

This was one such, back in 1988. The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Australia’s National Youth Circus’, had been launched in 1979 and went on to become a big hit there and overseas. One of the stars was Alona Smith, seven years old and less than three feet tall. A reviewer of the Mayfest show spoke of the circus’s “mesmerising routine”, which included bike-balancing, hoop-diving, juggling, and breathtaking trapeze work.

Mayfest itself began in 1983, billing itself as ‘Glasgow’s first international festival of popular theatre and music.’ Among the very first billed shows was one by the poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Each succeeding year brought a diverse range of Mayfest events, with household names, comedy, innovative drama, community events and more. Bobby Crush, who won TV’s Opportunity Knocks six times in a row, appeared in the Rocky Horror Show in 1986, to take just one random example.

Mayfest came to a troubled end in 1997, but its impact was recalled later that year by Rosemary Long, writing in the Evening Times in late 1997: “Mayfest was part of Glasgow since 1983. I can’t imagine the city without it, can you? Maybe you can. Maybe you never saw jazz on the Ferry, or the Mali theatre from Leningrad, or The Steamie, or the incredible Russian clown, or the Chicago tough kids doing a play, or the Soweto group bringing us all to our feet and tears to our eyes in the Mitchell... I have muddled memories of which years, which venues, but oh, what a buzz I used to get out of it all.”