Space-age auditorium brings Sydney to Yarm (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Space-age auditorium brings Sydney to Yarm

1:16pm Friday 4th May 2012 in Spectator's Notes

YARM School’s new riverside development, and particularly the Princess Alexandria auditorium, named after the Royal visitor who opened it on Wednesday, is seriously impressive.

Think Sydney Opera House, Gateshead’s Sage, and a bit of the Starship Enterprise, reduced in scale, and you won’t be far off.

Spectator had the privilege of being present for the Royal opening and despite the school’s pupils having less than six days to prepare in the new multi-purpose performance space, they put on virtuoso displays supported by the school sinfonia and choir.

Step forward for justified applause Matthew Bonavia, Katie Carter, Amelia Cockburn, Sarah Gardner, Alice Hughes, Emily Scott and Jake Goodwin.

The auditorium is easily the best of its type in the Tees Valley and a number of professional arts groups have booked it for the future.

It’s all rather different from the cavernous interior, creaky floorboards and tatty curtains in the school hall of Spectator’s alma mater.

Quakers fatigue is beginning to set in. There have been so many twists and turns in the saga of Darlington Football Club there is a danger that everyone, apart from the club’s diehard supporters of which there are clearly not that many, will be past caring what happens to the once proud institution.

As you read this, the club could either be: a) liquidated; b) still clinging on by its fingertips, or c) embracing a brave world away from the ridiculous white elephant of a stadium that is the Darlington Arena and moving to Shildon, albeit temporarily.

Do you care anymore?