School of Rock performance at Hummersknott Academy

The musical follows the story of Dewey Finn, who poses as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school to earn some quick cash when needing to come up with some quick cash.

But when he discovers the students are also highly talented musicians, Dewey hatches a plan to turn the uptight students into guitar-thrashing, bass-thumping, drum-smashing rockers and enter them into Battle of the Bands. 

The Mayor of Darlington Jan Cossins was in the audience on Friday night, and thoroughly enjoyed a "fantastic night". 

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She said: "I had a fantastic time at Darlington Academy of Performing Arts (DAPA) tonight watching 'School of Rock'.

"The cast - adults and kids, were fabulous, well worth a visit, they are performing twice tomorrow and then again on Sunday.

"The show is on at Hummersknott Academy and is amazing, try to get tickets if you can, I can highly recommend it."

Julian Pinkney, who plays Ned in the production, said: "We had the absolute pleasure of having the Mayor of Darlington in the audience last night to watch our performance of School of Rock.

"It was lovely for her to join us on stage at the end of our performance to say a few words and have photos taken with the cast.

"If you haven't got a ticket for today's shows or Sunday's finale please head over to the website Darlington Academy of Performing Arts as you may be lucky enough to snap up the last few tickets."