Hundreds of theatregoers furious after Carpenters Story show was cancelled without warning last night

Hundreds of people arrived for performance of The Carpenters Story in Milton Keynes only to find the theatre doors locked and the place empty and in darkness.

Many tried to call the the MK Theatre box office but said nobody was answering. Others tried to frantically email but there was no reply.

"It seems the show was cancelled but the organisers and the theatre simply didn't bother to tell anyone. It was disgusting," said one theatregoer. "We'd all bought tickets in advance and received a confirmation email as well."

Another said: "There were pensioners in the queue and many had arrived 90 minutes early as the confirmation advised them to. The queue was out in the road while we waiting for the doors to open. But they stayed closed."

One elderly couple had driven a 50-mile round trip to see the show. They are among the hundreds of people now demanding an apology, explanation - and a refund.

"It's beyond belief that a click of a button hundreds of emails could have been sent, and yet the only emails sent were to say what you needed to take with you, and they looked forward to seeing us later for the show. It's disgraceful," said one protester.

The Citizen has today asked MK Theatre for an explanation and a spokesman said they were busy "identifying what went wrong" and will issue a full statement later.

The Carpenters Story tells the tale of the famous brother and sister duo and features their most popular songs.

Part of a national tour, it was billed to be staged MK Theatre for yesterday (Sunday). But later a second billing advertised the date as October 13.

People are now speculating that the August date was postponed - but somehow the people who had bought tickets for it were not informed.

"Somebody has made an almighty mistake by the looks of it. It's just not good enough," said one theatregoer.