The New Hippodrome and Palace of Varieties was formally opened on Monday 2nd September 1907. Its first Managing Director was Signor Rino Pepi, an Italian ex patriot who was originally a quick-change artist and impersonator whose love of theatre took him into a management career. The theatre was designed by G Gordon Hoskins and built by Owen and Ward of Birmingham, a firm specialising in theatre building. It is constructed from local Middlesbrough red brick with terracotta dressings. Above the Park gate entrance is a 64ft. high pyramid-roofed tower (housing a water tank) which gives the theatre's distinctive appearance. The ornamental canopy is a replica of the original iron and glass structure, which was destroyed by a traffic accident in the 1960's.

The theatre flourished during the 20 years Signor Pepi ran it but following his death in November 1927, its future became uncertain. Competition from cinema became a real threat and a succession of different managers struggled to balance the books. Indeed at one stage the theatre was equipped with a film projection box at the rear of the upper circle. In 1966 after much hard work and enthusiasm from members of the community, especially Darlington Operatic Society, the Borough Council of Darlington assumed full financial, administrative and artistic responsibility for the theatre on behalf of the town. The "New Hippodrome" became officially known as Darlington Civic Theatre.

We arrived at the Theatre around 10.20pm, and went to the stage door. While standing outside of the door we heard chains and keys rattling, we rang the bell and knocked on the door, but got no response, and the keys rattling could still be heard as we were standing there. As we got no reply at the stage door we telephoned the Manager who was meeting us and he directed us to the main entrance where he greeted us and gave the team a very warm welcome. When we got settled in the bar area I asked the Manager what time the stage door got locked up for the night, and told him what we had heard, he informed us that the door had already been locked long before we got there. Spooky!

Peter gave us a tour of the Theatre and explained some of the history to the team, but did not reveal any of the spirits that are said to be present in the building, as we wanted to pick up the names ourselves. Some of the team who can communicate with spirit, did not have any prior knowledge of the activity that had been reported in the Theatre.

While we were standing on the stage Chris became very uneasy and started feeling quite ill, he saw a young man standing at the side of the stage, but he got no name from the man, he was just standing there watching the group. As we moved from the stage and into the backstage area where many sightings of a young man had been seen, Chris started to feel worse and he had to run out. The rest of the team stayed and listened to Peter tell them more about the room they were in, at this time Sharon got an image in her head of a young man falling and being tangled up in rope, also at this time Denise felt pain all around her neck. Peter then informed the team that this was where a young man called Jimmy was found hanging from the stage, they did not know if it was an accident or not, Sharon said that she felt it was an accident and that he had not killed himself.

The team returned to the bar area for a coffee and Robbie and Kristian went to see Chris who was sitting in the stalls, as they sat beside him, he told them that there was a young man on the stage named Jimmy, at this point Kristian told him what they had been told about Jimmy while Chris was away feeling ill. At this point Chris knew that he was feeling ill because the young man was impressing his condition onto him, Chris asked the spirit to take it away as it was making him feel ill, but Chris said that he wanted to thank Jimmy for coming to show himself to the team, as soon as this was said, Chris started feeling fine.

All of this happened even before we started our investigation, we were in for a great night.

While Chris had been recovering, the others had been shown the dressing rooms of the Theatre, and in room 12 Louise became very upset and started crying for no apparent reason, Peter told them that many people have seen a young girl in this room, on her knees pleading, they think she had been abused. The team thought that Louise must have been picking up this girls pain and fear.

Back in the Theatre, Peter told us a little more of the history of the place, at this point Robbie heard a dog whimpering, then some of the team heard a dog barking and then growl, Peter told us that this would be the old owners pet dog who was actually buried in the building a few feet away from where we were all standing, he seemed impressed that we had picked up on this. Also at this point Rhianne picked up the name Anna, but said that’s all she got, this really impressed Peter as there was a young girl connected to the Theatre, called Annabella, but she got called Anna, at the very same time we all heard a young girls voice say “Hello there”, the voice was so clear and very close to the team.

Throughout the night, the team picked up the smell of cigars, maybe the presence of The old owner Signor Rino Pepi.

Lots of orbs were caught on camera, some of them large and bright, others small and bright, one picture shows a row of orbs in the seats as though there were spirits sitting in the Theatre, probably watching us and having a laugh at what we were doing.

While the others were doing their investigations around the Theatre, Chris and Robbie decided to try table tipping, as they both sat around the table, they could see what looked like small old ladies hands moving in and out over the table, they both felt very cold and could hear footsteps around them, it was at this point the others returned. All night the team heard keys and chains rattling, just like we heard at the beginning of the night at the stage door, Peter took us to his office and showed us a large Chain with padlocks on it and keys, he asked if this was what we were hearing all night, it was the same noise. We were told that these used to belong to the old Caretaker who had died in 1970, at this point Chris asked who the guy with the moustache was, who he kept seeing all night at different parts of the Theatre, Peter told him that it was probably Gordon the old Caretaker, he said he is still heard locking the Theatre up at night.

After a short break the team decided to go onto the stage with Peter and try some more table tipping, first of all the team started without Peter and not much seemed to be happening so we invited Peter to join us as he had worked at the Theatre for many years and the spirits that resided there seemed to like him. He started calling out for them to try and move the table, at first we heard tapping on the table, then the table started to move slightly and it was almost vibrating, you could feel the energy, Peter again asked for the table to be moved like it had moved a couple of weeks earlier, the table again moved slightly but nothing major. Peter said that he was surprised that the table did not move so much, but we all thought that maybe they did not want to, maybe what they had shown us earlier in the evening was all they wanted to do.

All in all it was a very interesting evening with lots of interesting sounds and footsteps and voices which were heard by all the team, also Chris getting the condition of young Jimmy. From the moment we arrived at the Theatre there was lots of activity which carried on throughout the evening.

We would like to thank Peter for his very warm welcome and his knowledge of the history of the Theatre, which we would all agree is a beautiful place, one which would love to return to at a later date to carry out further investigations.

Once again all of us at Fatfield Haunted would like to thank Peter for giving us the opportunity to investigate this fantastic location.