The Stage

Chit Chat - Poor judgement

Published Tuesday 9 October 2007 at 12:00 by Tabard

From political correctness, to political expedience.

The Evening Standard this week announced its list of London’s 1,000 most influential people. It’s broken down into categories and each one has its top five.

The section for theatre is as follows - Nicholas Hytner, National Theatre artistic director, playwright Alan Bennett, actress Judi Dench, press representative Peter Thompson and Royal Court artistic director Dominic Cooke.

It’s a rather bizarre selection. Hytner is a no-brainer, but there have to be some serious question marks over the other four. Not that they aren’t deserving of being in a top 50, but not a top five.

Dench hasn’t appeared in anything in the West End over the past year, Bennett’s last piece The History Boys premiered back in 2004, while Cooke, although doing a great job at the Royal Court, could hardly be argued to hold more sway than the West End’s commercial giants.

And what about Thompson? He is an interesting choice and a man who would certainly feature somewhere in our own Stage 100 were it not for the fact that press representatives and administrators are excluded.

However, to place him fourth - above both his principle employers Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh - is completely non-sensical. In fact, by most accounts, his position of pre-eminence among theatre publicists is by no means as assured as it once was.

And, let’s be honest, it’s all a bit cosy.