Fresh into the job as director of London’s National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner has changed the way critics think about the institution. “The season has been risky, adventurous, yet critically acclaimed and popular. Hytner has the near-superstitious look of one who can’t quite believe it is happening. ‘All the shows that have opened so far are full at the box office. We can’t do any better. It is all that I could have hoped for. We can only go downhill from here’.”