DURHAM'S Gala Theatre will be showing the latest film releases.

Next month the £14m venue, run by Durham City Council, will screen 35mm films in the large screen cinema where it currently shows large format films such as Sacred Journey, the history of Durham, for tourists.

The theatre, which the council took over after the management company it employed collapsed with £700,000 debts, hopes to fill the gap left by the demise in January of the city's only picture house, the Robins Cinema in North Road.

The cinema will have one screen, 116 seats and four disabled spaces.

The first film to be shown will be the X-Men in the first week of the month.

A theatre spokesman said building work to accommodate the new projection equipment would be starting this week.

He said: "We will be restricted in that we only have one screen but hopefully we'll get the pick of the new releases.

"We will be running films three times a day, like regular cinemas and on top of that we'll still be showing the 70mm Sacred Journey and, at Christmas, big films like The Lion King. We will be running films 363 days a year."

The spokesman said the cinema would boost the venue's income and provide a service to film fans who currently have to travel to Gateshead or Boldon.

He said; "People are crying out for a cinema and we are giving them one."

The Gala is currently running a season of popular films that are projected from DVD on to a screen in the main auditorium.

For further details on the films which will be shown, call the box office on (0191) 332 4042.