FRENCH performance art show Waterlitz went ahead in Southampton tonight after it was postponed yesterday due to high winds.

A 60ft high totem, made of eight shipping containers in a nod to Southampton’s world famous port heritage, was brought alive in Mayflower Park with aerial acrobats, loud music and pyrotechnics.

The free extravaganza, by a French theatre company, lit up the skies over Southampton Water after sunset - but the audience of thousands that braved the rain was left divided.

Some hailed it as a great show, if a little bizarre. Many were left baffled, and others went home early deriding it as rubbish.

The show was due to go ahead last night but became the latest event to fall victim to the weather, just weeks after the Red Arrows flypast over Cunard’s three Queens in Southampton docks had to be cancelled due to torrential rain during the Jubilee weekend celebrations.

The event was a cross-Channel collaboration between The Nuffield and French street theatre experts Generik Vapeur.

Waterlitz was the finale in a spectacular series of EU-funded events that have been brought to the city by the council, Nuffield Theatre, Art at the Heart and the ZEPA partnership.

Midsummer Dreams, Alive and Ablaze and Barricade, which all took place in Guildhall Square, were hugely successful and Waterlitz was set to be the grandest of them all.

The council's leisure boss Cllr Warwick Payne had promised a “night to remember”.