So if you could have your dream person as artistic director of the National who would you choose and why?

Nick Hytner. When he finally gets fed up with all the carping and leaves, Michael Boyd.

Oh sorry, didn't read the instructions properly, you want to know why. Nick Hytner because I think he's really moved the National on during his tenure, because he programmes interesting and varied stuff (which is never going to please everyone) and because he has shown he can also run a business both financially and in terms of human resources. Michael Boyd because again he knows how to run a huge building as well as take risks and put on good and interesting shows. Most people can do one or the other, but both these two have shown they can do both.

I enjoy Hytner, and I like Boyd immensely where he is. But if, eventually, Michael Grandage wanted to take over, I'd find it hard to not approve. Although if Boyd did want to take over, again, I'd totally approve.

I'd offer up a "why", but if you recognise the names, you can probably work it out for yourself.

Grandage because he is committed to bringing theatre to the widest possible audience. His current West End season has many £10 tickets (most expensive £32.50), the entire season is on a break-even basis and no-one involved (stars included) is paid more than a company rate. And in an interview with the Times today he says its main aims are "Accessibility and audience development", just the man to open up OUR National Theatre to the widest audience. Given this I am perplexed that people like TheatreSquirrel are so much against him - to quote him from another thread:

"I'm not sure Michael Grandage's West End Donmar is a strong audition-piece for the NT. It, like his West End Guys & Dolls, is aimed very much at a high-paying market (fair enough, because that's who it'll draw) but there's not a whiff of genuinely inclusive pricing in his season which is surely a constitutional element of the National theatre".

Mmmmh!?

Quoting me out of context like that Jan is like I gave you a list of the ingredients needed for pancakes then you brazenly went and told folks elsewhere just one line of it, i.e. Theatresquirrel says you can make a pancake with just eggs. Telling them I'm 'so much against' Michael Grandage is - and you darn well know it - a load of crapola. (And given your latest revelation that you've been scrutinising my 'style' in close detail, it's utterly disingenuous of you, because you know full well the various raves I've written here about Grandage's work.)

My comment below came purely in light of one suggestion that Grandage should replace Hytner at the NT *right now* because the latter isn't doing many musicals but Grandage did Guys & Dolls (!), and another that the Donmar's West End season is basically his outright audition piece for the NT job. While I really admire the Donmar West End initiative and can't wait to see Ivanov, I wanted to point out that it's not got quite the same accessibility as Hytner's various strategies on this front and the only genuinely cheap seats are all at the back which is hardly that radical. That said, in context, I wasn't criticising this at all - I do understand the economics of the West End - but I was just using it as the first thing I could think of to dismiss the rather crass suggestion that Grandage is doing the West End gig purely as an exercise to show how he would do the NT job better than the current incumbent.

I'd love to see Grandage running the National one day, he's an amazingly fluent director and I've been blown away by so many of his plays (The Wild Duck probably being the best thing I've ever seen), but the comments I made below were in defence of the fella already in the role because, on the issue of access, I don't think any of the major players in any of the major theatrical organisations have yet achieved anything like Hytner has accomplished.

Interesting comparison of value, TS : you have a tenner only to spend on a theatre ticket and you can choose from something on at the National this week or Ivanov.
What would you choose?

Front three rows of War Horse or back three rows of Ivanov? Hmmm, tricky.

But please, it's not a competition, and this is what I inarticulately meant to convey at the outset. The Donmar West End prices are indeed relatively reasonable compared with most of the Shaftesbury Avenue bilge, yes. Compared with the National's Travelex and year-round front row pricing, they're not. Now that's entirely understandable because of the differing financial context of the two organisations, but nonetheless my point is that you (or rather Jan) can't therefore use the Donmar West End season to somehow imply that Grandage would be better at access were he Director of the National than Hytner presently is. He'd evidently be considerate of access, yes, no dispute, but he's not so raving radical at it that it's reason enough to toss Hytner out now. Yeah?

Okay, what if you've got £35? It still won't put you anywhere near the front on most West End houses without first paying a trip to TKTS, but for 'Ivanov', you can get the best seat in the house and even buy a drink as well (although from the newsagent over the road if not at the theatre bar). The Wyndham's is still a West End house, and the Donmar West End season is still a new experimental piece. You want Grandage to risk ruining everyone involved by selling as many seats as possible for as little as possible? Well, obviously we would like the best seats of EVERY show to be a lot cheaper than they are, but at the same time, aren't you willing to accept a little compromise while they first work out if this thing is going to work? The National can afford to chuck some front seats in with the very back (which is where I'm sitting for my £10 'War Horse' ticket, btw) at a mere £10; without knowing whether the Donmar West End season would even work properly, it would be incredibly naive and foolish to genuinely expect Grandage to do the same.

Hey Weez, two things:

1. I haven't got £35.

2. Did I not just say I wasn't criticising the pricing of Donmar West End? Didn't I say its prices were entirely understandable and reasonable in relation to elsewhere in the West End? Nowhere at all did I say it should have the same pricing strategy as the NT; that would indeed be foolish and naive. My point (for the fourth time) is simply that this season doesn't prove Grandage is better at accessibility than Hytner.