THEATRE Hullabaloo – Darlington's specialist theatre for children – will celebrate its first birthday next month and its s success is already months ahead of schedule.

The £2.7m theatre opened last December after redevelopment of the former Edwardian fire station adjacent to Darlington Hippodrome with funding from Arts Council England and Darlington Borough Council. It is the only specialist venue of its type north of London.

Miranda Thain, artistic producer, and Laura Case, executive director, said they were now at the “national table” discussing creative ideas, weeks before the venue celebrates its first birthday.

“The last 12 months have been the most fantastic rollercoaster ride,” said Ms Thain. “The Hullabaloo was a dream that we had for a long time, to have a child-centred theatre space, a space for creativity, a place to play and to learn in Darlington.

“We hadn’t realised the effect it would have on the community in just a few short months, and on the wider national and international creative life of children.

“The building brings with it credibility and we can be at the national table discussing policy issues around creativity.

“It has been incredibly exciting and satisfying – we really are just getting started,” said Ms Thain.

Ms Case added: “We were not surprised it happened, but in terms of our mindset of when we thought people might start having conversations with us in terms of national policy, we thought that would come a little later. Actually in the first six months it started happening quite quickly, and that is really good.”

The venue, which includes a 150-seat studio theatre, creative play installation space, family cafe area, rehearsal studio and external play space, had attracted interest from productions across the globe, as far away as Australia.

Highlights in the theatre's first 12 months include shows for children and young people with severe autism and work with babies and toddlers.

“It has completely exceed expectations,” said Ms Thain. “There has already been so much joy happen in this building which is exactly what we hoped would happen and the feedback we get from families is exactly that and they just enjoy coming here.”

Ms Case said: “We brought over children’s theatre from Sweden and it just went down an absolute storm, and we are bringing work from Australia in February. People are travelling from the wider Tees Valley and Durham on a regular basis.

“There were lots of questions at first about what is baby theatre? A show for 0-12 months – what does that look like?

“But because a lot of the audience were part of the workshops or research and development, they’ve bene on the journey so they felt invested because they contributed to it. We are looking for the best work that is made for children and young people.

“That journey we thought would take a bit longer because people are trying things they maybe don’t know or have heard of, but people have loved it from the very first production.”

For more information, visit theatrehullabaloo.org.uk.