There were many happy incidents at the Shaftesbury last night, not least the huge overnight success of Leanne Jones from Romford, Essex, as Tracy Turnblad.

Romford and showbusiness? An unlikely connection, and Leanne certainly ups the ante on other famously dour Romfordians as playwright David Eldridge and snooker champ Steve “Mr Interesting” Davis.

In the interval, choreographer Anthony van Laast was happily reunited with old friend novelist Deborah Moggach; film director John “Shakespeare in Love” Madden told me that he was editing his new Elmore Leonard movie; playwright Mark Ravenhill bridled when I suggested his recent Guardian column seemed to advocate less critical space for fluffy stuff like Hairspray.

And producer Nick Allott — hobbling much better these days after his ski-ing accident — introduced me to his delightful PA Misty (she can PA Misty for me any time she likes) as a feminine version of AA Gill (I thought we had that one already). 
 
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The vexed issue of intervals, when and if to have them, is a long runner that nobody seems willing to address. Roy Williams’s terrific new play at the Soho Theatre, Joe Guy, could definitely use a break.

And two new revivals of classic three-act comedies — Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the National and Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You at the Southwark Playhouse — are seriously spoilt by having intervals in the wrong place, ie straight down the middle, instead of in between each act.

I like intervals. I like to see who else in the audience, and I like to have a glass of wine and a friendly (or even an unfriendly) chat. The witty New Yorker critic Robert Benchley denied that he ever slept through a play. “I’m always awake for the intermission,” he boasted.

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This weekend is your last chance to catch the fledgling new musicals programme in the Perfect Pitch festival in the Upstairs at the Gatehouse fringe theatre in Highgate Village.

I can’t say I had an overpoweringly happy experience when I went along last night, but there is something faintly touching about a theatreful of students carrying on like wannabe chrous lines in a series of not very good camp old high school musicals.

The Gatehouse is one of the theatres closest in London to my front door, so I make a point of not going there as often as possible.

The pub it is “above” is a rather good one, with a fair selection of real ales and good wines. It is patronised by sixthformers and masters from Highgate School across the road, and also by Nicol Williamson and Alan Brien.

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Like everyone else, I’ve been dipping into Michael Billington’s magisterial new book State of the Nation about British theatre since 1945, although how you write such a book without mentioning Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Prowse, Antony Sher, Richard Jones, Jesus Christ Superstar and Michael Codron, to name but a few, is simply and utterly beyond me.

Mostly, the book retreads what we already know the great critic already thinks, and the history is mainly to do with fitting the movements and events into a fairly fixed and unyielding political prescription.

I revere Billybong, but I laughed out loud when I read: “Les Mis…represented a degradation of standards and a vulgarisation of taste that seemed neatly to encapsulate the philistine spirit of the Eighties.”

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I had a strong premonition that it would all go pear-shaped for England in the World Cup rugby final on Saturday night, so I took a deep breath and went down to Stratford East instead to see Genet’s The Blacks.

Was this a good idea? The underground system was in chaos (cheers, Ken). Severe delays on the Central, no trains on the Circle, Saturday night fever on the Northern and Piccadilly lines.

By the time I got to Stratford I felt as though I’d played in a scrum against South Africa myself, as well as France and Australia, with my head stuck up the backsides of various large bruisers trying to pull each others’ limbs off. Public transport can be a dangerous game. 

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Sometimes you just have to put your foot down with a firm hand, bite the bullet, clear the diary and do what you promised yourself to do many moons ago.

In the case of a tramp on Hampstead Heath with Irving Wardle, the great former drama critic on The Times and the Independent on Sunday, it was a promise made in 1989. At least that’s when Irving told me we made the tentative arrangement.

As he’s just caught up for lunch with Iain Mackintosh, the theatre architect and producer, after making a putative date in 1987, I suppose we’ve done rather well.

Still as fit as a fiddle at 78 years of age, Irving hasn’t changed a jot over the years. Wiry, inquisitive, slightly nervy — Jonathan Miller once asked me. “Is Wardle still twitching away in that anorak of his?” before diagnosing a severe case of “anoraksia nervosa.”

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I have just read one of the most shocking and scandalous sentences in recent newspaper and theatre history.

It occurs in today’s edition of the Guardian’s jobs section, where the RSC announces the vacancy created by commercial director Kate Horton’s departure to the Royal Court as its new executive director.

“The challenge for her successor will be to lead a team of 75….”

At this point I pinched myself to make sure I was awake, or even alive. A team of seventy-five people — not even actors, mind you, or cleaning staff — to do what, exactly?

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A good shout has gone up for actors’ power from the elegant throat of Dame Diana Rigg, no less, who has taken to the warpath over theatre posters: why the names of directors and designers on them, but not of actors?

She’s right in one way, of course: no stage designer ever sold a play to the general public. But how many actors’ names on posters these days — apart from her own, of course, and those of Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, ever really shift tickets?

For someone so grounded, Dame Di’s a bit hazy on history, even her own. She didn’t join the RSC in 1958; she joined the Stratford company. The RSC was formed in 1960 — she was a shooting star in an ensemble whose very existence denied the individual actor any place on the poster billing. And quite right, too.

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On Tuesday night, critics warmly welcomed the Theatre Royal Haymarket’s major new initiative – a year-long season of work under a single artistic vision in the heart of the commercial West End – and its opening production, Restoration comedy The Country Wife. And last night, Whatsonstage.com theatregoers got their chance to extend their own welcome to the team behind it.

We increased our allocation twice – to 200 tickets - to meet demand for this hugely popular event, which nevertheless sold out some time ago, generating a long waiting list of people desperate to get in.

After enjoying the show, and their free programmes and drinks in one of the Haymarket’s beautiful bars, theatregoers stayed on for our exclusive post-show Q&A. Director Jonathan Kent, the former artistic director of the Almeida Theatre who’s overseeing this inaugural season, stopped in especially for our talk, and he was joined by several members of The Country Wife cast - Patricia Hodge, David Haig, Fiona Glascott (the country wife of the title), Nicolas Day, John Hopkins, Tristan Beint and Elisabeth Dermot Walsh – all of whom were incredibly generous with their time and insights at the end of a demanding two-show day.

Amongst the fascinating topics discussed were the challenges of Restoration language and asides, the meaning of names, morality, corsets, rampant rabbits (versus squirrels), text pruning, Toby Stephens’ connection to Warren Beatty (did you know that the film Shampoo was based on The Country Wife?) and, unsurprisingly given the sexual obsessions of Wycherley’s play, lots of other pure filth. Jonathan Kent also offered a great overview of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company and its aims – and encouraged us all to play our part in supporting it and the future of the West End.

Edited highlights of the discussion will be posted later today in the News section of the main Whatsonstage.com website here –
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=198&types=Y

You can add your own comments about the event either here or on the main Discussion Forum. You can also post your verdict on The Country Wife to our User Reviews for the show –
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=206&action=users&show=l02061978966

We look forward to seeing you all again soon.

- Terri Paddock, Editorial Director

My friend David Robins died last Saturday and many people in the theatre will miss him. For the past fifteen years he has been grants director at the John Lyon’s Charity, supporting the educational programmes at the National, Royal Court, Hampstead and Donmar Warehouse theatres, as well as countless schools’ projects and initiatives.

Prior to that job, he worked for the Prince of Wales Trust. And prior to that he was an academic sociologist, underground journalist (on the International Times, Ink and the early Time Out), dedicated squatter and all round good guy.

He always remained the good guy, but he changed. He manned the barricades during the Paris evenements of 1968. He knew Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the situationists. But he’d also seen Paul Scofield as King Lear and Beckett’s Endgame. And he renounced Marxism long before it was fashionable, let alone necessary, to do so.

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