A theatre full of 'impeccably liberal gents'

'Most of our male newspaper theatre reviewers are impeccably liberal gents who regard sexism, Tories, the evils of capitalism and the wickedness of foxhunting with unbridled horror.'

In today's Telegraph, the paper's excellent theatre critic Charles Spencer delivers a great riposte to National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner's ridiculous and petulant attack on theatre reviewers as being 'dead white men' who especially dislike the work of female directors - an attack which was obviously meant to distract from the terrible reviews for Emma Rice's staging of 'A Matter of Life and Death.'

Quite right that Hytner should be condemned for using such PC and frankly offensive language to discredit a whole profession (it brings to mind Greg Dyke's disgusting comment on the BBC as being 'hideously white.') But then, in his last paragraph, Spencer lets slip a truth (which we've quoted above) which the NCF couldn't have put better itself. Straight from the horse's mouth...