We critics talk endlessly about issues. Can Kevin Spacey turn the Old Vic around? Whither the National Theatre? Are there too many Hollywood stars in the West End? But we rarely talk about acting. Partly through pressure of space and time. But also because our theatre is no longer dominated, as it was in the 1940s and 50s, by heroic performers. The age of Olivier, Gielgud and Ashcroft is past. Now we talk of going to see “Trevor Nunn’s Hamlet” or “Sam Mendes’s Othello.”

So, for a change, I’d like to celebrate an actor: David Haig who, in the current revival of Michael Frayn’s Donkeys’ Years, is giving what I see as a career-defining performance. Haig has, of course, been around for some time always doing fine work. He was a vital part of the Royal Court under Max Stafford-Clark. He was the knee-trembling centrepiece of Terry Johnson’s Dead Funny. And for me he was much the best thing about Mary Poppins. As the employer of the starch-knickered nanny, there was an extraordinary moment when he returned home after losing his job and barked loudly at his brattish offspring. It was as if real life had suddenly intruded into the technicolour fantasy of the musical.

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