Brouhaha brought their lively and entertaining mix of international artists to St Helens today (Saturday 26th July). With weather to match, they created a genuine carnival spirit in Church Square.

I caught amazing drummers from Portugal, throwing their drums in the air and still keeping the beat. Then a Polish brass band with a wonderful mix of tunes. Followed by Italian entertainers scaring young children with their masks - but still enticing some to join in a conga. There was much more to follow - if you were there, please mail in and let us all know what you thought. And we'd love to show some photos if anyone has any they'd like to share.

Congratulations and thanks to the organisers for bringing us such an enjoyable and interesting event. We hope you can make it an annual event. Lets have more of this in St Helens please.

The Brouhaha team will be out again at Princes Park on 2nd August - we'd definitely recommend you catch them.

Your comments:
The Spanish dance troupe were great, seven (eight?) lithe elegant women and a broody looking man stamping and swirling, castanets and fans, sleek taut hair and fake gardenias and a nice modern twist on flamenco dresses - inset v-panels had frills and gave huge swirling skirts, very effective given the amount of twirling and foot-stomping they were doing, serious dancers, especially in that heat.

Definitely would like to see more like that - it attracted a fair number of families with quite young kids and a lot of older less able folk (more seats might have been nice) but a dance stage where we could see their feet would have made it more interesting. They were too distant up on the black stage with their feet hidden by the equipment.