It was a tough act to follow, but Richard Wilson got it absolutely right as the late Ned Sherrin’s stand-in as host of the Evening Standard’s drama awards at the Savoy yesterday. He was funny without straining, pointing out that not everyone who deserves an award is necessarily nominated. He, for instance, had appeared in the West End this year…

I was fortunate to be seated on a table in Ned’s memory with his great friends Alistair Beaton and Victoria Mather, his agent Deke Arlon and the producer Michael Codron. We all gave Richard two thumbs up as we tucked into our citrus infused tian of Cornish crab and rosemary encrusted loin of lamb. One thumb for the lamb.

Eileen Atkins, presenting the best actor award to Patrick Stewart, said she was so cold she couldn’t remember why she was there and was planning to strip all the men at her table and steal their clothes. There was a huge rush of suits in her direction as she sat down. Tom Stoppard and John Mortimer thought about it and then stayed put.

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When the Cockney actor Brian Croucher was being auditioned for a television serialisation of Wives and Daughters at the BBC some years ago, he was asked if he knew anything about Mrs Gaskell. “Yeh,” he replied, “she runs the Royal Court, don’t she?”

Brian was of course mistakenly referring to Bill Gaskill, the Court’s then artistic director, not the 19th century lady novelist whose husband’s name was, funnily enough, William.

One is suspicious of all superlatives hurled at television drama these days because there’s so little of any merit whatsoever. Those vacuous, obscenely over-budgeted and pretentious Stephen Poliakoff films were a soulless rip-off of Pinter, Mike Leigh and even early Poliakoff himself, with the small saving graces of some full-on gratuitous rumpy-pumpy between Kelly Reilly and Rupert Penry-Jones and a wonderfully still, stricken performance from Maggie Smith in Judith Hearne mode.    

But Cranford is something else. Wise, witty and beautifully written by Heidi Thomas, with the best of British acting right the way through the cast. And what a cast! Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie, Jim Carter, Robert Glenister, Julia Swahala, Lisa Dillon, Michael Gambon…

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I keep a record of every play I’ve ever reviewed and I’m devoted to books of lists, lists of lists, dictionaries of everything, film guides, encyclopedias, companions to this or that and books of anecdotes, insults, and humorous quotations.

But I’ve never seen anything quite like Robert Tanitch’s obsessive new tome — The London Stage in the Twentieth Century, no less — which records every single West End opening from 9 January 1900 (Cyril Maude in She Stoops to Conquer at the Waldorf) to 16 December 1999 (Roy Fearon and Richard McCabe in Othello at the Barbican), with cast details, pithy comments and critical quotes.

It is, in fact, your very own personal theatre museum and you can have it for £30 from most good bookshops and all the good theatre ones. You can check what opened on your birthday and then have a suitably themed party. How am I going to make that work with The Glass Menagerie, I wonder? I’ll come to yours if it’s Oh! Calcutta!

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The news that the Derby Playhouse might become a John Lewis department store is less tragic than it might be. At least you’ll still be able to get curtains, sound and video equipment, make-up and a good selection of snacks and drinks for the next interval.

The trouble is, there is no next interval nearby. The catchment area for the Playhouse is one of the largest in the country, and the audience over the years has shown extraordinary loyalty and resilience in finding its way there in the middle of a hideous concrete development.

Although my own attendance has been sporadic, I can’t remember ever not having a good time. You had to, really, because the hotels and restaurants in the area are so abysmal.

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Only at the very end of his gently submissive interrogation of Michael Billington at a National Theatre platform event to plug his State of the Nation tome did Nicholas Hytner throw away the script and come clean:  he refuted entirely the idea that drama tends to adopt the liberal consensus.

And then in a wonderful fit of exasperation, he said the truth: there are not enough good plays being written to merit being put on. He therefore seemed to imply that if someone writes a half-way decent good play, it will, inevitably, be put on.

This was of not much interest to the actresses in the audience who had heard Billybong not choose the best actress he had ever seen. He chose Olivier as the best actor. But actress? He was schtum. Eileen Atkins, Sian Phillips and Sian Thomas — three of our finest — drew a corporate sigh of relief. If he’d mentioned Peggy Ashcroft it would have been fine. Judi and Maggie references might have caused a mini-riot.

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We had a wonderful memorial for David Robins at the Royal Court on Friday. The speeches of his friends in journalism, psychotherapy, education and the John Lyon’s Charity were all brilliant and informative. But who would lighten the load with a breath of musical magic? Maria Friedman would, that’s who.

She sang Kurt Weill’s “My Ship” and Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” with such grace and beauty the audience was reduced to one big blubbing organism. And she had expert accompaniment, too, from Simon Lee, taking time out from working on the Phantom sequel with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Poems by Nigel Williams and David’s daughter Sophie were read superbly by William Hoyland, making much of David’s DIY habit: “Unlock my heart with a plumber’s wrench,” wrote Williams, “Dave was a warrior, Dave was a mensch.”

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I did something I’ve been meaning to do for ages the other day. I counted up how many times I’ve reviewed Hamlet. It came to forty seven, so I’ve a short way to go before I can match J C Trewin’s daunting title of one of his last books: Five and Eighty HAmlets.

Why did I bother to do this? I’d been invited by the Shakespeare Club in Stratford-upon-Avon to talk about seeing our national poet performed all over the world. Of course there were Hamlets I never reviewed, such as my first, and my favourite, David Warner’s at the RSC. And I never saw John Gielgud play the role, though I saw him recite speeches from it, most notably “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” at top speed with perfect articulation. 

My mood of retrospection was tinged with melancholy as, on Tuesday afternoon, I watched the cranes and wrecker balls rip out the heart of the old theatre by the Avon. It really is the most shocking sight. And as I stood there in Waterside, I swear they munched up Seat H22 in the upper gallery where I perched to watch Ian Richardson in a blond wig as Coriolanus. I took this act of desecration very personally indeed.

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A long piece in yesterday’s Observer by Jay Rayner wants to know where are the right-wing dramatists. It’s not really a question worth asking. Most people who work in the theatre do so because they are not right wing.

And those that are — the late Ned Sherrin, perhaps, Ray Cooney possibly, Ken Dodd certainly — are part of another generation with reason to be suspicious of ideology with no basis in experience.

Funny how food critics are suddenly ripping into the theatre, as if what’s on their plate already isn’t sufficiently serious food for thought (it isn’t). First A A Gill, now Jay, who reveals he worked as a drama critic on the Ham and High for three months. He’s a good bloke, and a good writer, but obviously no great loss to drama criticism. 
 
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All the girls in the bar at Hampstead Theatre’s after-show party, and most of the chaps, too, were agreed: Stephen Hagan who plays the quarryman nude model for the Michelangelo David in Antony Sher’s new play is completely gorgeous.

One gaggle, from the leading ICM agency, were lamenting their executives’ failure to sign Stephen up. The Belfast boy has just left drama school and joined Conway van Gelder. As Nicky van Gelder is a neighbour of mine, I should easily be able to arrange a fan club outing when Stephen pops round for a cup of tea. Leave it with me, girls.

My guest, the exotic actress Bernice Stegers (married to film director Mike Newell) was telling me about a friend of hers who has lunch every Wednesday with Edmundo Ros, the Latin American dance band leader. Edmundo’s 97 years old now and still going fairly strong. At which point, Simon Callow pushed past and said, “I want to go to lunch with Edmundo.” But he was really on his way to see Stephen.

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