THE time has come to draw a line in the sand concerning a £14m North-East theatre's troubled financial history, says its new boss.

Simon Stallworthy, the new man at the helm of Durham's Gala Theatre, says he was well aware of the project's three years of controversy when he took the job.

Mr Stallworthy, 44, is credited with saving Bolton's 400-seat Octagon Theatre in 1999, but said yesterday: "I am reluctant to be seen as some kind of trouble-shooter coming in to rescue a troubled building."

Durham City Council's head of cultural services Tracey Ingle said he will have a £650,000 budget to work with at the 510-seater Gala.

Mr Stallworthy said: "From my point of view, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that £650,000 was a workable, achievable budget. I don't think the Gala is any different to other theatres I've run. If you put in a loss-making show, you've got problems."

Mr Stallworthy is one of three appointments at the Gala. Darlington Arts' Kathryn Goodfellow has arrived as marketing manager and next month sees experienced theatre programmer Robin Byers move across from the South Shields' Customs House.

Ms Ingle sees the £30m redevelopment of a hotel, apartments, cafe bars, restaurants and multi-storey car park on the Walkergate site, next to the theatre, as finally placing the building "in a thoroughfare, rather than a cul-de-sac".

Mr Stallworthy decided to move back into theatre work after two years in television, which included a spell as script editor on ITV1's flagship soap Coronation Street.

Under his stewardship Coronation Street re-claimed the No 1 soap spot with viewers from troubled EastEnders.

"I arrived on Corrie just after the serial killer Richard Hillman episodes and it was a question of how do you follow that? So it was not a dissimilar situation to what you have here about finding things to appeal to people," he said.

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