DARLINGTON seems to be on the side of the Angel. The Theatre Hullabaloo play for children aged ten years and above opens its autumn tour at the Dolphin Centre’s Central Hall next week just as a heaven-sent opportunity has been announced to give the company a purpose-built venue in the town from 2016.

“There’s a fair amount of work to do and planning to get through and we’re hoping to align our building with the Civic Theatre redevelopment and we’re waiting for its big funding decision. The council will operate the building and we will provide the child-centred activity within,” says Theatre Hullabaloo boss Miranda Thain.

“We’ve come a long way. It was just over two years ago since the Arts Centre closed and we were feeling pretty down.”

The loss of facilities in Darlington – Theatre Hullabaloo are currently housed uncomfortably in the Quaker Meeting House offices in Skinnergate - with rehearsals put in the hands of co-producing companies in the south of England, meant that a long-term future in the town looked unpromising.

The company’s showcase event of the best in worldwide children’s theatre, the TakeOff Festival, which is about to take place later this month (October 20 to 26) and also brings together international delegates, looked like it was becoming more beneficial to be based in Durham City.

From the brink of losing the biggest exponent of children’s theatre outside London, Darlington Council has created a Hullabaloon, the purpose-built 150-seater theatre plus cafe, workshop space, rehearsals and offices in the old fire station next to the Civic.

The cost is high. The council is contributing £425,000 to the £2.5m project, plus annual running costs of £60,000 which will come from the Civic’s existing budget. Another £1.5m grant is almost certain to come from the Arts Council, which already provides annual funding for Theatre Hullabaloo’s work and £45,000 annually for the festival.

“It’s been very difficult to do what we do and continues to be. We haven’t been able to work with children in the way we’d have like to. We’ve deliberately used the opportunity to have a regional presence and got involved with seven venues across the region. Although the TakeOff Festival’s heart has moved to Durham, it’s now right across the region and we have more than 70 performances from Washington to East Durham and Weardale and Stockton and Middlesbrough,” says Thain.

“But in two years time we will have the only flagship children’s theatre north of London and Darlington will be where we can focus all of the work we can do regionally,” she adds.

“We are not replacing the Arts Centre and we’ve been clear about that from the start. It is a different kind of offer, but what the building will be able to do is give facilities to children and families and small-scale theatre that the Civic can’t accommodate,” says Thain about Hullabaloon, which requires another £300,000 to complete its fund-raising.

Meanwhile, the company has managed to find space at the Quaker Meeting House for rehearsal for the award-winning play Angel, which tells the story of an unlikely friendship which develops between a stroppy teenager and a woman struggling with the early onset of alzhiemers.

“We’re also rehearsing at Hartlepool and the Witham Hall, Barnard Castle, so it’s still a bit of a hotch-potch. We got such fantastic feedback about this play we decided to revive it. The play (by Kevin Dyer) was developed with Age UK of Darlington and we also worked with ten-year-olds from the area as well. When we first started researching the play we found that grandchildren didn’t understand why mum and dad were suddenly preoccupied with grandma who couldn’t remember their names anymore,” says Thain.

Bidi Iredale from Whitby and Ceri Ashcroft appear in Angel.

Tour dates: Friday, October 10, Dolphin Centre. Box Office: 01325-486555; Tuesday, October 21, Durham Johnson School; Wednesday, October 22, Bishop Auckland Town Hall; Thursday, Oct 23, Greenfield College, Newton Aycliffe; Saturday, November 1, Stockton Arc. 01325-352004 takeofffestival.org.uk

THIS year Theatre Hullabaloo are changing the TakeOff Festival. The delegate conference discussing the future of children’s theatre will now take place on alternate years from 2015.

“This means we can take performances this year as far as we like. It also means that we can present wonderful pieces like Dusk (for four to seven-year-olds at Stockton Arc on Saturday, October 25) where children get the chance to wear ears and a tail and go through an installation in a forest, meeting performers along the way,” says Thain.

One visitor to this year’s event is from Palestine although the most anticipated production is by the Ailie Cohen Puppet Maker/Unicorn team from Scotland. It’s called The Secret Like Of Suitcases and aimed at four year-olds upwards and will be stage at Middlesbrough Town Hall (Thursday, October 23) and Durham Gala Theatre (Friday and Saturday October 24-25).