Mario Philip Azzopardi is turning out to be a world-class director. His latest work is an iconic farce that would have us all in stitches, if only we had a theatre big enough to hold 100,000 people. Unfortunately, that mediocre and cheeky Italian beardie got there first.

Like Susan Boyle, but not quite so plausibly, Azzopardi's dreamed a dream. It is, by his own admission, an 'impossible' one. I can just about figure the pessimism. To think that 100,000 people would each be willing to fork out €600 over five years (33c a day, as all wine club adverts put it) to indulge his antipathy to the night sky, is megalomaniacal to say the least.

So, the first phase of the dream is to get 'the Maltese' to fund 'their' own theatre by their own money, rather than use that other form of their own money known as taxes. Sweet, and it gets better. Once the money is raised, it would be up to 'the Maltese' to decide what 'their' theatre should look like. That's why Azzopardi plans to rope in "the University's Architecture Department", "students", and "Corporate Malta". And whoever else happens to have a pencil and a spare scrap of paper, I suppose.

That sort of reminds me of when a Mr Simpson of Springfield was given the opportunity to design his own car - that would therefore reflect the market demands of the average American. If I remember well 'The Homer' had a doughnut dispenser and a giant cupholder, plus a compartment for naughty children (e.g. Bart). It was also very expensive to build, and quite impossible to sell.

But there's more fun. Again it has to do with, you guessed it, "the people". Azzopardi thinks that the theatre project should be run by "us", rather than "the authorities". This political cataclysm would be immortalised in a plaque above the entrance to the opera house, which would read: "This theatre was built by the Maltese without the help of government, politicians, or political parties..."

I wonder where he got these ideas from. Canada was a democracy last time I checked, and in a democracy there is no distinction between "the people" and "government/politicians/authorities" (reason being that, amazingly, governments are elected by people). So, if/when Piano's building sees the light of day, it will be at least as much the people's project as Azzopardi's fantasy.

So much so that, given a choice, I'd much rather go with an elected politician than some self-proclaimed prophet of the masses. And I don't really care how many e-mails and Facebook-blog-whatever-hits Azzopardi has received ("streaming in by the dozen", he says). For much the same reason why I think Beppe Grillo, who believes he can spend his days bashing 'the political class' at will just because he runs a funny website, is a despicable man.

Azzopardi's antics are typical of migrants desperate to cling on to their country of origin (sometimes known as 'people in diaspora'). Such types are not uncommonly afflicted by a kind of homesickness-cum-nostalgia that takes the form of all sorts of lunatic projects and dreams for the place they left behind.

Before you tell me that Azzopardi no longer lives in Canada, I should add that the malady is strongest among returned migrants. In their case it becomes a sort of double-edged homesickness-cum-nostalgia for which there is no known cure.

I first came across the disease among people of Indian origin who lived outside of India - in Britain, Canada (ahem), the US, and so forth. Some said they wanted the Indian government to 'boot out' all Muslims and establish an authentic Hindu state; others that India needed more flyovers and bridges; others still that an Indian mission to Mars was the sane way to go.

Closer to home, we've all met Maltese emigrants and returnees who advise us to switch from beef to kangaroo steaks, or tell us that we should give our criminals 'the chair'. What they're actually saying is that they've come such a long way in the world that they can see possibilities we can't. That's because we've lived here sensibly for years, and they haven't.

I honestly hope the Prime Minister will lend an ear to Piano and a finger to the Azzopardi crew. For at least three reasons. First, this whole Piano business is fast becoming a litmus test of Lawrence Gonzi's ability to govern. If he fails to deliver this second time round, we will begin seriously to suspect that he cannot make up his mind. Hamlet is not a character politicians will want to mix with.

What I'm saying is that Joe Friggieri's play Tkun darb'oħra Mikelanġ ('Tomorrow is another day', 2000), which made merry of the theatre cock-up of the 1990s, stops being funny in sequel.

There's another reason why Azzopardi and his supporters should be ignored. The people (for real this time) have now spent millions out of their tax money to bankroll not one, but two expensive plans by Piano. I happen to have heard that the architect's patience is wearing thin. If the internet demagogues end up sinking the whole thing, Gonzi will have to explain to us where our few cents a day for many, many days have ended up.

The third reason is simple. We're faced with a choice between plans drawn up by Renzo Piano, and those (to be) proposed by Mario Philip Azzopardi. The least said about that the better.

Given the lunacy of his proposals, it's possible that Azzopardi is having a laugh, so to speak. If that's the case I take back everything I've said and promise to watch all his films thrice daily for three days. That'll teach me to make fun of the people.

mafalzon@hotmail.com