AT THIS rate, the performance at the Darwen Library Theatre looks set to overtake Agatha Christie's Mousetrap as the longest-running stage drama.

That is because though its glittering new production was billed, ballyhooed and massively bankrolled more than a year ago, the curtain still has not gone up on the first act.

The run-down theatre was boosted by a £628,400 lottery award last May. The windfall was earmarked for a new frontage, extra seating, a gallery and a bar and better access for the disabled.

Today, the place is still shut. That's because the snail-paced bureaucrats have commandeered the show.

Blame is hurled at the theatre's old overlord, Lancashire County Council, for drawing up a revamp project that cost too much.

But its old understudy-turned-owner, Blackburn with Darwen Council, which took over last April, is to come up with an alternative "in due course."

Yet, hey, weren't we promised increased efficiency when the council got self-rule? The fed-up audience is starting the slow handclap.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.