Susannah Clapp says that the question of whether the old guard of British theatre critics are a pack of misogynist stick-in-the-muds, as National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner recently alleged, is somewhat beside the point. “This current spat won’t do the theatre, so often derided by non-theatrical columnists, any harm: there it is, discussed in pages usually given over to Lily Allen’s prom frocks. Still, it only touches on the real threats to the independence of critical opinion.”