WELL, it's been an interesting few weeks and I don't mean that in the sense of the Chinese curse about "living in interesting times", even if the opening show was a Chinese opera!

The Manchester International Festival and its director Alex Poots never made any secret of the fact that the very nature of the festival, where the guiding principle was that it would be the "world's first international festival of original, new work", almost inevitably meant that some shows were going to be more obviously successful than others.

But the artistic success rate of the festival has been astonishingly high. What's more, the commercial expectations have been either met or exceeded, generally speaking. Is there anyone in the world who now doesn't realise that Manchester is a major player on the world arts scene?

I doubt it, and it's gratifying that London is now clamouring to see shows like Monkey: A Journey To The West, which will also be playing in Paris and Berlin.

So, Manchester's international reputation has been as enhanced at least as much as it was by the Commonwealth Games.

But what of the festival's local impact? I have not come across anyone who doesn't, on balance, think it has been a great success, even if they had initial doubts about a festival which gave equal weight to a musical version of a Salman Rushdie novel, some exotic ice-cream flavours from Heston Blumenthal and the Happy Mondays!

Community

Clearly, though, there are some lessons to be learned in terms of making sure the whole community feels included. It was unfortunate, for instance, that the Festival Pavilion, home to several family-friendly events, couldn't have been in a more commanding location.

There are also quibbles about the sheer amount of money that the festival cost, inevitably impacting on other local arts organisations at precisely the time when other sources of funding are drying up. The counter-argument to that is, of course, that if you up the ante in terms of Manchester's cultural profile then the general sponsorship and funding pot will grow, as realization dawns that it's smart to invest in the arts in Manchester. Time will tell.

It's clear, though, that a show like Monkey doesn't sell thousands of seats if only critics are going. That show was a success because, once they'd got over some initial suspicion, it grabbed the imaginations of local people who might never otherwise have dreamed of going to something called an "opera".

Manchester International Festival has triumphed because it dared to dream, it dared to think big and it dared Manchester to rise to that challenge. Now everyone should set their sights on another great, challenging adventure of a festival in 2009.

MY TOP FIVE EVENTS

Monkey: Journey To The West , Palace Theatre (pictured)

THERE was a huge amount riding on the success of this unprecedented collaboration between Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, of Gorillaz, with Chinese opera director Chen Shi-Zheng. It turned out to be a thrilling, wonderfully unclassifiable show featuring acrobats, contortionists, martial artists, a multi-national orchestra and singers, with brilliant designs and animation from Hewlett complementing Albarn's daring score and Shi-Zheng's singular direction. Everyone, from Dennis Hopper and Jude Law to what seemed like every journalist and broadcaster in the world, was dazzled.

Monster , Royal Exchange Studio

SOLD out its run as soon as we printed our rave review: "In terms of its ambition, passion and sheer bravery in attempting to tackle some of the biggest issues of our time, Monster is an object lesson in what new writing should aim to be."

Interiors , secret location

A REMARKABLE, funny, poignant piece, co-written by Johnny Vegas and Stewart Lee, where even its location was not divulged until you were there, as one of 20 people at a time who boarded a bus outside the Festival Pavilion twice a day.

Given an estate agent's description of a "two bedroom house, Old Trafford/Chorlton border", you were then taken to an ordinary-looking house, to be met by one Jeffrey Parkin, also known as Johnny Vegas.

The brilliantly controlled, wonderfully risk-taking show that followed was something quite unique and special.

The Pianist , Museum of Science and Industry

A SOBERING but extraordinarily affecting adaptation of the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman's memoirs, which also inspired Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning film. A unique and deeply moving experience in the intimate surroundings of the 1830 Warehouse at the Museum.

Carlos Acosta , The Lowry

THE Cuban has been described as "the world's greatest male ballet dancer". That was a claim he went some way to justifying at a jaw-dropping show, positively rippling with grace and danger.

Much has been made of Acosta's rags-to-riches story - he was born in a Havana slum and saved from a possible life of crime when his father enrolled him, against his will, in one of Cuba's national ballet schools - but that became irrelevant when you were watching the man perform.

This was a performance that was not only outlandishly energetic, but so full of joy that I found myself with an idiotic grin on my face, instead of the usual critical furrowed brow.

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