TONIGHT will be the 28th and final performance of the York Millennium Mystery Plays when the first ever production in York Minster of these famous medieval community plays comes to an end.

Every show has sold out, bringing 28,000 people to Northern Europe's most magnificent Gothic cathedral as the spiritual centrepiece of the city's celebrations of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ.

As long ago as last autumn bookings began pouring in from near and far, home and abroad, and this week queues have been forming at 10 o'clock in the morning, fully five hours before the daily box office opens for returned tickets.

The Plays' patron, the Duke of York, attended the first night; the production was directed by one of the brightest stars in the British theatre firmament, Gregory Doran, the associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company; rehearsals were held at the newly opened National Centre for Early Music.

This all adds up to a world-class, unforgettable event, of national and international impact, in which historic plays have been performed in a church even more steeped in history. It has been an epic production, watched by the eyes of the world, be it foreign visitors or BBC and Tyne Tees documentary film-makers, all marvelling at the four-yearly celebration of community spirit in which the amateur company of hundreds, both on stage and off, have given months of hard work to one of the jewels in the city's heritage.

Now the question is: how do we beat that in 2004?