Do you know what; if you could bottle the feeling you get from a really successful awards night, you could sell it and make a million.

Last Thursday, I compered the Celebration of Achievement at Hartlepool College, and the atmosphere was electric. The evening kicked off with a world class video presentation produced in-house by Gary Kester and his team. Combining images of a resurgent Hartlepool and a vibrant College year, its sound and light visibly energised the audience. Gary is a seriously talented guy and one of his previous videos, summarising the history of human achievement in three minutes, is well worth seeking out.

The whole night must have amazed any visitors who had not been to an educational awards night in a while. The old days of bored faces and dusty speeches are long gone, and the happy people receiving their recognition clearly enjoyed being part of something really special.

As Principal and Chief Executive Tony Sutcliffe said, the night was very much about partnership, and it was great to see to so many local and regional businesses and organisations there to show solid and practical support.

Just to show that it really does work in practice, I "mike-ambushed" student Phil Rowland just before he proposed his vote of thanks. He told a great tale of how one of his practical engineering design projects has been taken on by local industry. Like many of the students rewarded last Thursday, he'll be one to watch for the future.

The next day continued the positive theme on my home patch, when I was at the Hartlepool Partnership Board, chaired by local MP Peter Mandelson.

This was held in just the right place: the Historic Quay, surrounded by the bustle which is the new Hartlepool.

Hartlepool Council's John Mennear led the launch of the town's Cultural Strategy, packed with good ideas to make the quality of life even better.

Wearing my Chair of Culture and Leisure hat, I chipped in with my pet project to bring something special to the town - and the Tees Valley. Given that the excellent Billingham Forum Theatre will be gone in the not too distant future, the area will be left (save for Darlington Civic Theatre) with no professional large-scale theatre.

My proposal is to make a start on bring a really big (1200 capacity plus) professional theatre to a potentially exciting site twixt the Marina and the Headland. It would be big enough to bring in the major national tours, create a lot of spin-off business and jobs, and create a real buzz for local performers too.

I know that One North East are keen to support big projects in the Tees Valley to counteract the notion that Newcastle/Gateshead get all the prizes. Watch this space!

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I cut my journalistic teeth as a theatre critic, and I'm the first to admit that sometimes the professionals get it badly wrong. I'm glad I caught the public mood, though, when I gave rave reviews to the Queen/Ben Elton musical "We Will Rock You" at London's Dominion Theatre.

Some of the national critics were very sniffy about the production, but sell-out houses, standing ovations, and, now, the awards have spoken for themselves.

It dominated the musical categories in the Theatregoers' Choice Awards announced by www.whatsonstage.com, the only London Theatre awards in which the paying public decides who and what wins in all 20 nomination categories. Over 16,000 theatregoers voted to decide the awards.

We Will Rock You swept the awards winning each of the five categories in which it was nominated: Best New Musical, Best Actor in a Musical (Tony Vincent), Best Actress in a Musical (Hannah Jane Fox), Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Sharon D Clarke) as well as Best Director for Christopher Renshaw who took the title across all categories voted on.

Queen's Roger Taylor said: "At last - real awards voted for by real people. This represents an overwhelming vindication of our wonderful cast in a new kind of musical."

If you're off to London, try to get a ticket; it runs until next January, and then commences a series of international runs. Any comment, the experts?

Published: 12/02/2003