I’m sad to say I was unlucky enough to pay a visit to the new-look Borough Theatre in Abergavenny recently and how I wish I hadn’t bothered.

It must have been a building designed with things in mind rather than people because it has none of the welcome or user-friendly warmth of its predecessor.

Gone is the friendly box office where people gathered before the show, replaced by a cold counter in the corner of the TIC.

Gone is the friendly staff member who travelled up in the lift with you, replaced by a -so I’m told - even more unreliable lift, which my companion reminded me cannot be used by many people in wheelchair.

The friendly foyer has been transformed into a chrome and wood nightclub bar which would be more at home on the Starship Enterprise than in a local theatre and dominates the entire area.

And all that is before you even enter the bland a charater-less auditorium where the lack of handrails made getting to my small, wobbly and uncomfortable, seat perilous at best.

I hate to be one of ‘those people’ who refuse to accept change and yearn for the ‘old days’ but there are times when change is not necessarily for the best and never moreso than in the case of the Borough Theatre.

I’m sure that new customers will rave about the theatre’s new look but those of us who remember its old look will mourn its loss.