A feeling of fringe in rude health permeated the weekend as I shuttled between the Bush, the Hampstead Theatre and the Old Red Lion. John Simm gives a treasurable performance in Elling at the Bush, and one of his biggest fans – a critic! – was there to see him. Fiona Mountford was not even on duty for the Evening Standard (the redoubtable de Jongh was sharing a front row pew with Blanche Marvin (no relation to Lee or Hank) – “They always save me a place on the front row,” rasped the black beetle-ish queen of the night, coveting de Jongh’s end of row perch but not getting it) – but was there simply because she adores John Simm. From afar, we trust, and certainly along the cathode ray of the hit television series Life on Mars. Myself, I am pleasantly confined on the same row as Dominic Cooper, the brilliant, handsome young actor who is gradually getting over spending three years as Dakin in The History Boys on stage and film. I tell Dominic I prefer the film to the play, mainly because of having Richard Griffiths in close-up, and he expresses surprise: “Most people prefer the play.”

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I see that misquoting the critics on hoardings and publicity material could become illegal when a new EU directive comes into force later this year. This is really to do with “sharp” practices in all forms of marketing, but some critics seem to rejoice in the prospect of having their pearls of wisdom unmolested by ruthless managements seeking to fill up their billboards with rave notices. I can’t get very excited about this. It’s not as if the deathless prose of a jobbing critic is worth fighting over, and standing on too much dignity makes you sound as if you’ve mistaken yourself for Hazlitt. And anyway, all critics, myself included, spend most of their lives misrepresenting (in the view of the artists) original theatre work in print; why should the critics feel themselves beyond such misrepresentation?

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In this fine spell of early summer weather in London one hopes a sunny thing will happen on the way to the theatre, and I can offer a few hints from my experience over the past few days. The refurbished Young Vic has an upstairs bar with a terrace looking out over the Cut, and the night-time buzz of the place is pleasantly leavened in daylight by a mixed crowd enjoying drinks, snacks and noisy conversation against the constant ambient sound of the music (you know the kind of music I mean: sounds like Shirley Bassey warming up to sing Goldfinger but never quite making it). I sat outside with Tanya Ronder who has adapted Venon God Little for director Rufus Norris and we nibbled olives and sipped cold beers in the sun. The Cut really is a “happening” boulevard at the moment, with pubs and restaurants filled to overflowing, the lights of the resurgent Old Vic twinkling fifty yards away.

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I made a north London sandwich of one of the most depressing plays ever seen last night, when I caught the opening of Aalst at the Soho Theatre inbetween welcoming my friend Pam Brighton on a flying visit from Belfast. Theatre director Pam — she was a fixture at the Royal Court in the early 1970s, then worked in televesion and radio before starting the Dubbeljoint touring company and directing an early version of Stones in His Pockets (she subsequently lost a court case claiming rights in the play when it became a smash hit) — is in town to start work on a new book, join a fortieth anniversary of the student sit-in at the London School of Economics and catch a few shows. Her first was A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Roundhouse, where we were due to meet before I went off to Aalst, but the plane was delayed and we didn’t catch up until I had endured Aalst and hopped on a 24 bus back up to the Roundhouse (I also had time to catch Chelsea’s last two goals against West Ham in a pub on the Chalk Farm Road).

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I have a soft spot for the Queen’s at Hornchurch (no, it’s not a swamp). Much of my early theatre-going was done in the original Queen’s in the early 1960s, when the company included Martin Shaw, Susan Stranks, John Hargreaves and Nigel Hawthorne. It was a cosy little house that had been opened by Ralph Richardson in 1953. Its 500-seater 1975 civic successor on Billet Lane has never been as loveable, but under Bob Carlton this past decade it has become one of the most extraordinary success stories in the British theatre.

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Note from Whatsonstage.com Editorial Director Terri Paddock:

This blog has been set up for our chief critic, Michael Coveney, who will shortly be launching his coverage here, which will be an insightful addition to his ongoing overnight reviews for the main website. One of the country’s most respected critics, Michael has been with the company since April 2006. Born in London and educated at St Ignatius College and Worcester College, Oxford, Michael has written about theatre for over three decades, as editor of Plays and Players, and as staff drama critic on the Financial Times, the Observer and, most recently, the Daily Mail. His books include a history of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre and critical biographies of Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Since leaving the Daily Mail in April 2004, Coveney has been a regular contributor to the Guardian, the Observer, the New Statesman, Prospect and BBC Radio’s Front Row. In addition to his reviews on Whatsonstage.com, Michael contributes regular features to our sister print monthly, What’s On Stage Magazine (formerly Theatregoer), and is a member of the advisory panel for our annual audience-voted Theatregoers’ Choice Awards.

I have taken part this week in two platforms, at the Old Vic and the National Theatre, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary — to the very day — of John Osborne’s The Entertainer, and the revival of Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo. How potent these old play are, and how skimpy they make most contemporary drama look.

When The Entertainer first opened, Kenneth Tynan reviewed it in the same week as he covered Williams’s Camino Real and Victor Borge’s one-man show in the West End; it was, he said, one of the most interesting and provocative weeks of London theatre since the war. He mantained, however, that Osborne had not yet found a way of writing a convincing role for an actress, an assertion completely contradicted in Pam Ferris’s magnificent portrayal of Phoebe in the current revival.

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One has enormous sympathy for Frances Barber, Goneril in the new RSC King Lear with Ian McKellen, who was knocked off her bike by a jay-walker in Stratford-upon-Avon thus inadvertently causing a delay to the Press showing. But increasingly one feels that the show should have gone on and been reviewed with her understudy in the role; the critics could have been invited back to see Frances’s Goneril when the show returns to London after its world tour. If indeed it does return to London. Director Trevor Nunn put out a series of reasonable explanations for the postponement, addressing his remarks to the critics’ circle and “not for publication,” which is rather naive of him, one feels. And anyway, surely this was Michael Boyd’s call as artistic director. Or is the Nunn/McKellen company operating under a separate hegemopny within the state-subsidised RSC?

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How did you do in the Grand National on Saturday? Did you have a flutter on the greatest steeple chase race in the world? There were not many showbiz connections that I could make out before the start, but one stood out: Sam Waley-Cohen, nephew of theatre-owner Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen, was riding a 33-1 outsider Liberthine, French owned and British trained, the only mare in the race and — something I always like — listed at number 29, a prime number. Liberthine came home fifth out of just thirteen horses to finish (40 started) after giving a really superb display of short and long jumping and elegant footwork, marred by only one tiny slip from which she easily recovered. Sam is an amateur jockey but looked completely professional to me. He led the field over the fearsome Becher’s Brook second time round and came to the last fence well placed with Silver Birch, the eventual winner, and Slim Pickings. But she tired on the final run-in.

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The question came out of the blue. “Why,” I was suddenly asked by the editor of the Observer on the first night of The Entertainer at the Old Vic, “are there so many old plays around?” He cited not just the fantastic John Osborne play but Peter Shaffer’s Equus and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Off the top of my head, I said it’s because they all offer juicy star parts in a way few modern plays do. While last month in this column I urged that we pay more attention to supporting actors, there’s no denying that audiences love seeing charismatic performers in star parts.

And not just audiences. Actors too feel they have to measure themselves against the top roles in the canon. GH Lewes, a celebrated Victorian critic, said that “he is greatest who is greatest in the highest reaches of his art”. And just as every actor who aspires to acclaim has, at some stage, to play Hamlet or Lear, so every actress has to essay Hedda Gabler or Cleopatra. But these are classics. The intriguing question is why there are so few comparable star parts in modern drama.

The obvious answer is that we live in an anti-heroic age. We are suspicious of the cult of individualism. We nominally espouse egalitarianism. We believe our lives are controlled by economic forces rather than exceptional leaders. While that may be true, it didn’t stop Bertolt Brecht, a Marxist debunker of heroism, creating a stream of lead roles. If a handful of Brecht’s plays are constantly revived, it is because Galileo, Mother Courage, Arturo Ui and the peasant Grusha in The Caucasian Chalk Circle are a test for any performer.

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