The hardest job in British theatre is in good hands

THEATRE  Indhu Rubasingham has been named as the new boss of the National, which is one hell of a task but all the signs are that she's got what it takes

- Nancy Durrant

THE role of England manager has been called “the impossible job”. There’s the weight of expectation, of leading a nation’s hopes. Get one big decision wrong, or luck goes against you, and the newspapers, the fans, the public turn on you.

I’m put in mind of this for two reasons this week. One, that I saw for the second time James Graham’s fantastic play Dear England, about the current England football manager Gareth Southgate and how he stamped his mark on the job, changing the culture of the England team from within, bringing first the players with him and then the whole nation. It has transferred from the National Theatre to the West End and, my God, it’s good. So fun, so clever, so joyful, quite instructive if you don’t know anything about football, and the audience is full of lads, which means no queue for the ladies at half time.

And two, that — hurray — Indhu Rubasingham, director of the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, has been named as successor to Rufus Norris as boss of the National Theatre. Which, as my Standard Theatre Podcast co-host Nick Clark pointed out, is basically theatre’s equivalent of the impossible job — it’s the pinnacle, setting the agenda for the nation, all eyes are on you, every decision picked over and questioned. Get it wrong and the knives are out.

But Rubasingham has the quality to stamp her own mark on this most difficult of tasks and her appointment was received with universal delight, industry-wide. “Sometimes, good things really do happen and the job goes to absolutely the right person,” said commentator David Benedict. “While the rest of the world seems to be making all the wrong decisions, the National Theatre has made a perfect one,” said critic Arifa Akbar.