The news that the police and security forces discovered an unexploded car bomb in the Haymarket early this morning is a terrible reminder of the dark days of twenty years ago when hoaxes, bomb scares and bag searches were part and parcel of theatregoing in the West End.

The first night of Cats at the New End was interrupted with a hoax telephone call as the cast took their bows. The critics had rushed away to file their notices by then, so it didn’t affect the review coverage.

But when Richard Eyre much later said that critics looked as though they were running for the exits as if their trousers were on fire, he was a little too close for comfort.

Let’s just hope things return to normal as soon as possible. A fully functioning theatre culture and a West End heaving with customers is the best possible rebuttal to terrorists.

The mayor Ken Livingstone could take another leaf out of former New York boss Giuliani’s book; his rallying cry and, above all,example, had Broadway buzzing again within a few days of the attack on the Twin Towers. Come on, Ken: join whatsonstage and start singing the theatre’s praises. Even better, buy a few tickets and call a Press conference!

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Yes, those angels with dirty faces, the critics, were out in force again yesterday for the all-day opening of Angels in America in Hammersmith. Some were still smarting from A A Gill’s attack, but most were treating it with the contempt they feel it deserves.

No sign of a Tesco bag, though Charles Spencer owned up to a bulging briefcase and Christopher Hart of The Sunday Times — who’s never even met Gill — was fearlessly sporting a pair of comfy shoes.

Any style points going were scooped by Rufus Wainwright in a light summer checked suit, designer trainers and a diamante-studded collar. Once a few colleagues had explained to Benedict Nightingale who Rufus was, even he did a little gawping.

In the intervals, Rufus joined director Daniel Kramer’s partner, Simon Callow, and RSC chief associate director Greg Doran on the terrace for coffee and drinks. Are they by any chance plotting a Christmas show for the RSC, where Kramer is soon bound?

Between the two plays, Lyric director David Farr and Headlong director Rupert Goold gave us a run-down of future plans. Farr reiterated the old saw of new audiences. He said that for him, the National, the Young Vic and groups like Punchdrunk and Shunt, the future was with their young audiences. He believed that bravery is always rewarded in the theatre, so he was determined to keep on pushing out the boundaries.

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There was a good spot of critic-bashing at the weekend when A A Gill rounded on theatre critics in the Sunday Times, accusing them of not being as good as Bernard Shaw or Kenneth Tynnan.

Hmmm, well,sorry about that, but as a television critic, A A Gill may not be quite as good as Clive James or Nancy Banks Smith.

I don’t think we can blame him for that. He’s a good knockaboout act, Gill, but when it comes to the serious stuff — the Mike Nichols flm of Angels in America comes to mind, appropriately this week– he’s absolutely hopeless; and as a television reviewer (oh, and by the way, he may be better looking than Mark Lawson, but he’s not as good as him, either) he seems to be suffering from guilt about ignoring the theatre.

Historically, this is interesting. Tynan said that if he was starting his career again in the 1970s, he would be writing about and working in television. This is what happened in respect of James, Russell Davies and Julian Barnes, to name but three.

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Next Tuesday Sir Cameron Mackintosh will celebrate forty years to the very day in theatrical management with a big party in the Prince of Wales Theatre. His name first appeared on a poster announcing Kenton Theatre Summer Season, which opened on 26 June 1967 with The Reluctant Debutante by William Douglas Home.

He soon learned the trick of opening bank accounts in far flung places like Jersey and Aberdeen, so that cheques would take that much longer to clear and he could buy himself three or four days of box-office income before they started to bounce.

He was in the West End by 1969 (a revival of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at the old Saville lost every penny he and his friends had invested). Side by Side by Sondheim was his first hit in 1976, and Cats followed in 1981. The rest is history.

The great thing about Cameron is that he knows how to work hard and he knows how to enjoy himself. And many of his closest friends — the agent Barry Burnett, the actor Christopher Biggins, the singer Julia McKenzie, his photographer partner Michael LePoer Trench — have stuck with him through thick and thin. His office, too, is fairly stable, as they’ve all had such a good time together for so long.

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Blimey, old Gandalf’s agent drew the short straw last night at Drury Lane. Dallas Smith of Peters Fraser and Dunlop, who represents RSC stalwart Malcolm Storry, was banished to the gods, the top layer of Middle Earth — ie the cheap seats in the gallery — along with all other leading agents for the Lord of the Rings cast.

This was to make way, presumably, for such household names in the stalls as comedienne Faith Brown (who wore a dress slit up the side to her throat — and why stop slitting there, I wonder?), Arlene Phillips (who easily won best dress of the night award), Howard Davies hugger-mugging with Kevin Spacey, Blanche Marvin, Ruth Leon and many others whose names escape me; we didn’t even have the benefit of Biggins.

Mind you, it could have been worse for Dallas. He might have got stuck behind Brian May’s hair. Judi Dench gave me her usual frosty greeting — I’ve never been forgiven for being rude in a review of her daughter Finty — but her consort for the night, Richard Eyre, was the soul of merriment and discretion, as usual. I was beginning to enjoy the pre-show and interval a lot more than the performance itself.

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I had a great Turkish meal before the new production at the Arcola last week. And it cost next to nothing. Most theatregoers, if not most critics, organise their outings around where they are going to eat either before or after the show. In London these options are becoming increasingly exotic.

A visit to the King’s Head or the Almeida in Islington can lead you to one of several excellent Chinese restaurants along Upper Street, or to the Lebanese restaurant (often my choice) on Theberton Street. The West End is the usual lottery unless you are going to splash out at the Wolsey, J Sheekey or the Ivy.

But the East End is now characterised by some especially wonderful ethnic choices: the Balti restaurants along and around Brick Lane if you going to Wilton’s Music Hall; the Vietnamese venues along the road from the Hackney Empire; and the Turkish grills and cafes around the Arcola along the Stoke Newington Road.

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There was a most remarkable event in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, this afternoon, and I’m not even referring to a technical run-thru of the (still) three-and-a-half hour Lord of the Rings musical…it was a celebration in the Grand Saloon of the career of Edwin Shaw, box office wizard and ticketing supremo these last 50 years for Stoll Moss Empires, the London Palladium, the Delfont Organisation and the Really Useful Group.

Edwin recalled how he had started out in Sheffield with Harry Hanson, Tessie O’Shea and Wilson, Keppel and Betty. He’d ended up by ushering Stoll Moss into the credit card era, and helping out Peter Thompson, press agent extraordinaire, with all his first night allocations. His half-hour speech was a vivid potted history of the British theatre of the past half century.

When rep actors changed trains at Crewe on a Sunday afternoon, he said, Olive Gilbert would regale them with a selection from The Dancing years in the station cafe. When the Glasgow Empire took more than £300 a night on the box office, the staff went home with a police escort. The Queen Mother used to nip into the Victoria Palace for the second half of the Crazy Gang shows on a regular basis; Edwin was always there to oil the wheels (and top up the gin and tonics).

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It really is all happening on the South Bank these days, with Anthony Gormley’s statues popping up all over the place, everyone praising the re-treated acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall and the bars and restaurants packed to the gills in the summer sun.

On my way to collect my tickets for Philistines at the NT the other day, I bumped into Stephen Pritchard of The Observer en route to his choir practice for the opening Festival Hall concert; and snacking by the river with my producer friend Tom Siracusa I found two more practising choristers on a break, my former neighbours and hot shot Welsh lawyers Gareth and Gerwin. Stephen was singing in a modern piece. The lawyers were singing Schiller’s Ode to Joy. I think this may signify something, but I’m not sure what.

The next day I had lunch in the new Terence Conran restaurant in the Festival Hall with chief executive Michael Lynch and artistic director Jude Kelly, both a little pasty-faced after the previous night’s celebrations. The restaurant is now called the Skylon but it retains the refreshing river atmosphere of the old People’s Palace, and the food is still good, if less hearty.

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Great news for British theatre from the Tonys, with a super seven gongs for Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia and a double design nod for Bob Crowley. But the eight awards for the all-American musical version of Spring Awakening is especially pleasing as the enterprise is so fresh and youthful and the musical itself — a really neat, sexy and accurate version of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play — owes much more to Hair and Rent than it does to Sondheim or Lloyd Webber.

When I saw it on Broadway recently, it also attracted by far the liveliest and least “Middle American” crowd of all the shows I saw. The honoured librettist Steven Sater’s father is London-based Texan director Michael Rudman’s first cousin. The old boy cries with pride, apparently, every time he hears the show mentioned, so he must be flooding his street with tears this morning.

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