Watch: Question Time in the Shropshire spotlight
It was the night the lights of the country's political scene beamed down on Telford.
An audience of 150 people packed into Oakengates Theatre last night to take part in BBC's Question Time programme.
People from from Telford, Bridgnorth, Ironbridge, Newport and further across the county were in the crowd for their chance to put panellists on the spot about the big issues in politics.
Facing the questions were Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves MP, Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt MP, Ukip's Mark Reckless MP and the Sunday Times journalist and critic Camilla Long.
Host David Dimbleby came out of the auditorium to give the audience a pre-show pep talk, urging the audience to "be lively and argue among one and other as well as panellists".
Audience member Steve Bray said he was impressed that the stalwart presented took the time to do the preamble himself.
"I have to say that David Dimbleby is a great warm up act for his own programme," he said.
Once the preliminaries were out of the way, the crowd were invited to take their seats and the questioning began.
While some of the audience were just interested in hearing the answers to other people's questions, many had come prepared to quiz the panel themselves.
Rev Keith Osmund-Smith, minister of Madeley Baptist Church and police chaplain, said thinking of good questions to ask had been more difficult than he had expected.
"The most difficult thing is to find a question that's relevant to the viewing public and everyone here," he said. "You can be focussed on something that's of interest to you but there might be only a few other people it would interest."
Younger people also took an interest in the political debate, with 16-year-old Andrew McMahon-Stone wanting to ask his own question.
"I want to know what they think about young people voting, especially with the general election coming up," he said.
The programme was last filmed in Shropshire in 2012 when a panel of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Stephen Twigg, Caroline Lucas, Germaine Greer and Charles Moore visited Shrewsbury. It was last held in Telford in 2006.
