THE rebirth of Darlington Hippodrome after decades of neglect is said to have begun in the late 1970s when Christopher Biggins was cast in Mother Goose and yesterday, on the same stage, Boris Johnson put on a performance that was pure panto.

He burst out from behind the curtains in a blast of energy, hand manically jangling in his left pocket as if he were searching for the magic beans – if he threw them onto the floor, a beanstalk would grow and he could climb up it to Downing Street.

Before the welcoming applause had died down, he barrelled into his stump speech. A naughty snigger went round the audience as, in true panto double entendre style, he said the £39bn promised to the EU should be “suspended in a state of creative ambiguity” until a proper deal was done.

“We’ve got to get ready for a no deal exit,” he said. “Do you think this great country can do it?” And in traditional panto style, the audience replied “oh, yes we can”.

Mr Johnson portrayed Jeremy Corbyn as the wicked witch of the left who needed a whirlwind to land a house on top of him, and he had a gag so bad it could have come from a Christmas cracker. Those opposed to no-deal, he said, were creating fears that the country would run out of drinking water, that the planes would stop flying and there would be no Mars bars because of a shortage of whey. “It is all nonsense,” he said. “I make the confident prediction that the planes will fly, there will be drinking water, and there will be whey for the Mars bars because where there’s a will there’s a whey.”

But he turned the groans into loud cheers when, in the same breath, he promised “and there will be parmos – which I have had many times in the company of my good friend, Simon Clarke”. He pointed to the Middlesbrough South MP who had folded his 6ft 7in beanstalk frame into the front row.

Mr Johnson finished his speech with a remarkable sentence: “We are going to prick the twin puffballs of the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats who are sprouting saprophytically on the sense of decay in our politics and we are going to knock Jeremy Corbyn for six.”

In contrast to this entertaining panto, watching Jeremy Hunt on the stage was like attending a geography society talk on the geology of the Andalusian foothills.

Jacket-free, he had recently studied the Wikipedia entry on Darlington so he knew about railways and bridges.

But he is also panache-free. He said: “Darlington is the home of Student Finance England so I’m just wondering if we can use that engineering brilliance to do something about the extortionate six per cent interest rate.”

In contrast to the colourful chuckles of the panto that had gone before, in his plain white shirt sleeves, Mr Hunt oozed coolness and calmness.

There’s “not much difference between me and Boris on Brexit”, he claimed, and the election was about “the type of person who is sent to Brussels to get a deal, the quickest and safest deal”.

He gained applause for wanting to keep no-deal on the table, but then he said no-deal “will be a shock – if you are a sheep farmer facing a 40 per cent increase in tariffs on your lamb, it will be a shock”.

His £6bn package of aid to help businesses over the shock was received in silence, with the tumbleweed of honesty blowing around the Edwardian auditorium.

The audience preferred the sunshine positivity of Mr Johnson. “In 12 months’ time, we will have pitchforked off the incubus of Brexit,” he predicted. “In 12 months’ time, the melancholy gloom will have lifted and we will have got a great deal and we will be in good fettle.”

The two men are chalk and cheese.

Mr Johnson answered one question by riding a stream of consciousness about being on a plane exporting live ducklings to Dublin for Chinese restaurants, whereas Mr Hunt in detail told of how he would install electric charging points when the roads were dug up for full fibre broadband.

When asked about austerity, the candidates agreed that it had been necessary. Mr Hunt gave a measured answer, saying that with hindsight, austerity had cut too far into police numbers and social care, whereas Mr Johnson launched into an anecdote.

“I never liked it,” he said. “I remember Dave Cameron saying he wanted to have an austerity Olympics and I said ‘no way, mate, that’s not the stuff to give the troops’.”

But perhaps there are hidden depths to Mr Johnson – his more detailed answer on the Northern Powerhouse and his unequivocal support for a Teesside freeport won admiration.

Mr Hunt left the stage to respectful applause after his geology lecture whereas Mr Johnson, the pantomime darling, had some people on their feet.

In the corridors outside, Mr Hunt tarried to shake hands but Mr Johnson had disappeared – there was a hustings in Perth last night.

The Hexham MP Guy Opperman, who is undecided, gave a fair analysis: “There’s no doubt Boris projects a positivity that is palpable and a belief that’s appreciated and, at the same time, Jeremy is more forensic and business focussed.”

OPINIONS among local Tories were divided, as Page 14 shows.

One passerby said: “Boris is style over substance.” Another said: “I just don’t think Hunt’s enough of a character to do what needs to be done.”

A third said: “We need a safe pair of hands to negotiate a deal and I don’t think Boris will be given the time of day in Brussels.” Whereas a fourth said: “Jeremy Hunt had more stature than I was expecting.” But a fifth said: “Boris has a credibility in the country to do what was voted for three years ago.”

But the “Back Boris” badges were in the majority.

“Only one candidate has stardust,” said Mr Clarke.

For many Tories, Boris is the best boy in this panto and, at the home of Mother Goose, he will lay the golden egg.