The West End is forever in danger of being turned into a giant TV variety studio: three West End musicals, of course, have already had their original leads cast by public vote on reality television, with a fourth on the way; while The Sound of Music replaced its TV found star, Connie Fisher, with Summer Strallen, who was first introduced into the show not on the stage of the London Palladium but via a set up on TV’s Hollyoaks. Plays, too, are regularly cast nowadays from the ranks of inexperienced TV and film actors.

Last week’s opening episode of the new series of Channel 4’s Peepshow made surprisingly prescient fun of this. Mark and Jeremy arrange to go on a double-date to the theatre - and Jeremy assures his sceptical friend that the prospect of going to see a play wasn’t something to be afraid of: “It’s all different now,” he says. “They’ve moved on. They use proper actors, you know, Americans, and people off the telly, and they’re all based on films, so its fine.”

Since Jeremy is played by Robert Webb - who next week makes his West End debut in Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig, alongside My Family’s Kris Marshall and Gavin and Stacey’s Joanna Page - he is literally proving the point.

The last musical of the current Broadway season that opened officially on Tuesday night has also become the first to close: the opening night for Glory Days, that arrived on Broadway after premiering at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, was also its last night. Its producers said in a statement yesterday, “We adore Glory Days and everyone connected with this production. Sadly, given the over-night reviews and our low advance sales, we believe it is prudent to close the show on Broadway immediately.”

It was clearly less prudent to open the show there at all, and will mark the total write-off of the reported $2.5m capitalization that it cost to bring it there.

Even though the arrival of the summer, at last, means that we have to start suffering the curse of unventilated, non air-conditioned theatres again, we were at least spared one result of that yesterday: the shirt of the Evening Standard critic actually stayed on all day for the Henry VI trilogy at the Roundhouse. But that’s because it was Fiona Mountford, not Nicholas de Jongh, who was in the hot seat (in every sense).

Though Nick had reviewed the first half of the trilogy, it was Fiona who took over for the second half. (In another job share, Ian Shuttleworth was reviewing for the FT, whereas his colleague Sarah Hemming had reviewed the first half, though you’d have thought it would make sense for the same critic to review the whole experience since there are so many overlaps and parallels between them). Last summer, as in previous years, the moment the temperature went up, Nick’s shirt lost most of its buttons, as I noted here at the time; most of us stay resolutely buttoned-up yesterday, though I noticed Time Out’s Caroline McGinn sporting a shoulderless number, while Maxwell Cooter from Whatsonstage.com was wearing shorts.

In fact everyone in the audience noticed Max’s shorts, since in the middle play he was hauled onstage to act as executioner - a nice irony, of course, given that he was reviewing!

That headline, of course, is Mrs Lovett’s declaration to the customer that finally wanders into her shop after she hasn’t seen one for weeks - and discovers that even she thinks that she’s peddling “probably the worst pies in London.” Last week, I became that customer - no, I’m not referring to my experience at the Vodafone shop in Manchester, where you can’t afford to be in a rush or hurry, either, since even with just two other customers in the vast store (and counting a staff of at least seven) I still had to wait nearly 20 minutes to be served last Thursday. Rather, I became the onstage stooge to Maria Friedman as she sang “The Worst Pies in London” at the Menier Chocolate Factory on Saturday evening.

Of course, having seen the show before, I knew that someone gets chosen - and indeed, a friend who had also been before muttered as we returned to the theatre that some poor sod was about to be surprised. I naively thought I was safe because I was sat towards the back - directly, it turns out, in front of Trevor Nunn (who had directed Maria in her last West End and Broadway outing in The Woman in White). But Maria had spotted me in her second number, when she enters from the rear of the auditorium and had sung directly to me; so she honed in on me. After the show, I discovered from Trevor’s daughter, whom he had come with, that “dad thought she was coming for him!”

But Maria had nunn of that.

Confession time: I have nothing to say today! And, just as shocking, I didn’t go to the theatre last night. So, in fact, the two might be related.

I’m not usually, as regular readers will know, lost for words, and there’s invariably something happening, somewhere, that I can turn into a column. But life - or what passes for my life, in the form of the theatre - hasn’t delivered today. Hopefully normal service will be resumed after the bank holiday. But I’m probably also grinding to a halt in anticipation of that weekend, which I’ve actually started already by coming up to Manchester for a couple of nights.

David Hare makes a particularly revealing comment in his programme note for the adaptation of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking that he first directed on Broadway last year and has now brought to the National Theatre (where it opened last night) about what he thought when he was first approached to do the job: “It was easy enough to spend a few hours reading a book about death which you could let flop in one hand while nursing a scotch in the other. But how would it be to spend months in the gruelling Broadway system - endless previews, needless hysteria, erratic critics - in the company of a 72-year-old first-time playwright whose agony of grief was plainly so raw? Wasn’t the prospect… well, rather austere? So it’s hard to explain my own reaction - the one you have before you can think - was that the whole thing sounded, in prospect, highly enjoyable.”

That apparent perversity - of seeing pleasure in dealing with pain - is also one that underpins the whole love-hate relationship that artists like Hare have with Broadway itself, and which he alludes to himself in calling it a gruelling system. But apart from the narcissism of seeing it as all about him - and why shouldn’t it be, I suppose, given that is writing about his choice of whether to take it on or not - there’s also his complaints about that system, which he promptly itemises.

In the musical 42nd Street, director Julian Marsh famously declares: “musical comedy: the most glorious words in the English language”. I often agree - but there are also four more that are also guaranteed to put a spring in your step when you go to the theatre: “90 minutes - no interval”.

On Monday night, the Bush opened a new play Tinderbox that was prefaced by the PR issuing the dreaded words, “two-and-a-half hours”, but at least he added, “we’re doing drinks in the interval”. It’s a long time to spend in a theatre if the play doesn’t deliver, and as Michael Billington wrote in his Guardian review yesterday, “While it is refreshing to find a young writer delivering a two-act play rather than opting for the comfort zone of 90 minutes, I can’t help feeling that she stretches her basic joke a bit too far.”

So it was a pleasure to go to the Royal Court last night and indeed be told that the opening of Martin Crimp’s The City would run for just 90 minutes without an interval.

Part of the point of the fringe is that it is always full of surprises. But it’s downright shocking that, hot on the heels of the makeover of the King’s Head that finally has seats that actually face the stage for the first time in my memory, the Bush has now also been completely overhauled, too.

Gone are the fixed, L-shaped seating on two sides; though a previous refurbishment that brought in benches that actually had backs to them was shocking enough, the new rows of benches are actually padded for comfort - even if, at the moment, one’s feet don’t entirely touch the ground.

That, Josie Rourke told me last night, was a design flaw that she assured me would be corrected for the next production; they’ve been constructed a little too high. But they bring with them the possibility of being entirely flexible in this space. For the current production Tinderbox, that opened last night, they were arranged in seven rows facing a pretty gilded proscenium arch that even had curtains hiding the stage! Yes, the Bush has turned itself into a miniature West End theatre!

It’s probably just an ironic joke, but whether we need another West End-shaped theatre, albeit one that only seats 80 people, is another question.

No, I’ve not gone all Pentecostal on you. But, at least according to the annual Sunday Times Rich List published yesterday, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber - the 101st richest person in Britain, with an estimated wealth of £750m - is richer than the Queen (264th in the list, £320m). So is Sir Cameron Mackintosh (£184th, £450m). So, there’s more money in theatre - or at least musical theatre - than a combination of inherited wealth and state-funded privilege. Perhaps, as I’ve urged before, His Lordship (as they quaintly refer to him on I’ll Do Anything) can use some of that accumulated wealth towards a proper refurbishment of his theatres.

The list is, of course, largely speculative - without direct access to the personal accounts of every individual listed, it cannot be otherwise - but it makes educated guesses to produce a 110-page glossy magazine for the rest of us mere mortals to gaze and gloat over. Of course, there’s always an irresistible fascination with other people’s money, but I’m fascinated by the overall absence of many other theatre people here.

We know that it runs for over three and a half hours; but the question on everyone’s lips is: “How long do you give it?” They are, of course, asking about the likely prospects for the run of Gone with the Wind. On The Guardian website, I saw a link to a story that was headlined “Gone…. in 60 seconds”, which I thought was a bit too pessimistic (especially for a show that runs for more than 10,800 seconds). It turned out, though, to direct one to a quiz that tests one’s knowledge on the original novel and film in ten easy questions. But the tougher question of how long the musical can survive in the wake of the hostile critical reception it has received isn’t asked.

Of course, no one ever knows.

Uh-oh. After the bad word-of-mouth, the producers of Gone with the Wind woke up yesterday to bad word-of-press, and in a rare display of critical unanimity, the reviews were overwhelmingly negative. Of course, the FT and Sundays are still to come, but I canvassed at least two of these last night for their star ratings, and was told two stars by each. How convenient these are: we don’t have to spend time finding out what we think, but can cut to the chase! Tomorrow, on the other hand, I’m also hosting one of the regular theatrevoice.com discussions, in which a group of critics get together to talk about the major recent openings and our conversation is posted for the world to hear, so there’s an opportunity for a more detailed exchange of views that we don’t - and can’t — have on the night.

We may, of course, raise an eyebrow in shared pain (or a smile in shared pleasure), on a press night, but there’s a rule that we don’t discuss what we’re thinking on the night, and there’s certainly no colluding to reach the same conclusion.

Tomorrow is another day”, they sing towards the end of Gone with the Wind, but by the time we got to it, tomorrow was very nearly today. Despite last night’s first night starting a half an hour earlier than usual, and despite cuts that were put into the show since I first reported on the first preview here that meant it was said to be running three and a half hours instead of over four, we didn’t get out till 10.45pm - or at least those of us who had lasted the course and didn’t flee at the 9pm interval, as I counted at least three non-reviewing colleagues do, as well as Vanessa Feltz, amongst numerous others. Before he left, one of them complained about a different sort of wind emanating from the person sitting next to him: apparently his neighbour had repeatedly farted throughout the first act. But the bad smell, I should have assured him, was coming from the stage, too.

“Why did they do Gone With the Wind? Because, like Everest, it was there: purpose and heart were all that the show lacked, but in their place were glamorous dancers and the belief that if you sing loud, dance hard, act big and build scenery high, even success is possible.” No, that isn’t a quote from any of today’s reviews, but rather the late Sheridan Morley, describing an earlier hapless 1971 Drury Lane musical version of the story in his book Spread a Little Happiness.

The South Bank was the West End of its day during Shakespeare’s era, and it’s on a fast-track to once again being the most dynamic theatrical district outside of the West End once again. Though you can’t go bear-baiting there nowadays - unless, that is, you count the activities at a gay club right next door to the Menier Chocolate Factory called XXL, which specialises in the gay bear subculture - but living in Borough, I am a maximum of 15 minutes’ walk from a variety of venues, from the National, Old Vic, Young Vic and Shakespeare’s Globe (beginning its new season tomorrow, a little prematurely one feels, considering the current cold evenings, but coinciding of course with Shakespeare’s birthday) to the aforementioned Menier, Unicorn, Union and Southwark Playhouse.

I’ve been to the at least four of these in the last week, from Fram at the National last Thursday and ENO’s visit to the Young Vic with Punch and Judy on Saturday, to the Union for the opening of its new production of The Pajama Game on Friday and Edna O’Brien’s Triptych at Southwark Playhouse last night. There were two hits and two wide misses there, not a bad strike record.

I should know about the importance of trying to get a better work-life balance, but like Quentin Letts - who was profiled in the Independent on Sunday recently until the headline “He’s got more columns than the Colosseum” - I work hard, player harder, and don’t sleep enough. Quentin’s working day is cited in the piece as sometimes lasting 19 hours, and it does for me, too: no wonder I am writing this at 5.30am!

Quentin, however, diversifies a lot more than I do - as well as theatre reviews, he also writes parliamentary sketches, a weekly satirical column, and supplies lots of anonymous diary stories, and is now apparently being offered out by a public speaking agency at £3,000 to £5,000 per engagement, who are promoting him as being “known for his sharp wit and logical arguments.”

But as Quentin also says in the piece, “I think we’re probably the last generation that’s going to make a living out of newspapers. I suspect in 10 years’ time it’s going to be much harder to turn a shilling.” That chilling thought - that we’re reaching the end of a particular road - is also what keeps me writing at all hours (and means I am also making a modest step at diversifying, too, with a travel piece on Las Vegas to write tomorrow for an in-flight magazine). But being a theatre critic — as Quentin’s own presence amongst the first night throng also indicates - is nowadays sometimes just part of a portfolio of jobs that a journalist might have, rather than a full-time job in itself.