THE troubleshooter hired to save a £14m theatre has revealed the backstage chaos that contributed to disaster.

Only days after it was opened by the Queen, the Gala Theatre, in Durham, collapsed with mounting debts.

Durham City Council cancelled the three-year management contract it had signed with a private group to run the venue and turned to trouble shooters from Darlington Borough Council's leisure department.

Lindsay Tuck, head of arts at Darlington council, reeled off a series of problems that blighted the flagship venue. Her team found:

* no guidance for young and inexperienced staff;

* box office staff had no sales targets;

* departments only talked to each other about Coronation Street of EastEnders, not the ailing business.

Things began to go wrong for the theatre from the opening night when a Westlife concert turned into an embarrassing flop.

The big screen - heralded as a major attraction for cinemagoers - also turned out to be a mistake when officials realised only a handful of films were available to screen in the correct format.

When the management group Entertainment Durham Limited called in administrators it had racked up debts of almost £700,000.

The crisis forced the council to take back control of the venue.

In a bid to turn the theatre's fortunes around, Ms Tuck has created four separate hit squads with responsibility for catering, front of house, marketing and technical problems.

Reporting to city councillors this week she said: "We want to give visitors a quality experience from the moment they walk in."

Plans for the venue include making the area selected for a second cinema screen into a multi-purpose area that will be used for dance, comedy shows and music performances as well as film screenings.

Ms Tuck is also playing a leading role in selecting the theatre's forthcoming productions.

If the Gala can emulate Darlington Civic Theatre - which remains one of the region's most popular provincial theatres thanks to a varied programme of shows - then it will have gone a long way to solving the problems.

Members of the Gala scrutiny committee, set up by the council to oversee the theatre, were told that figures revealing the venue's losses in the last financial year should be ready next month.

Council leader Sue Pitts said that the total for the year would be announced next month.

The level of subsidy is believed to be about £700,000.