Cue genteel applause. The Stage newspaper has just announced its top 100 movers and shakers of 2005. The headline news is that the unassailable Andrew Lloyd Webber, who's been keeping the top spot warm for five years, has finally - gadzooks! - been knocked off his perch. According to the Stage's bespoke measurements, the largest figure in British theatre is now David Ian, theatrical head of entertainment behemoth Live Nation.
Corporate faces such as David Ian and Cameron Mackintosh continue to populate the higher branches of the theatrical tree, with artistic directors sitting somewhat further down: Michael Grandage of the Donmar, the RSC's Michael Boyd and the National Theatre's Nicholas Hytner all rather neatly line up at 6, 7, and 8, while Graham Sheffield of the Barbican is pegged at 12.
Many people won't have heard of the remaining top 20, big beasts such as Kevin Spacey and Harold Pinter aside - theatre owners and producers dominate, as they do in the heavily commercialised West End. But fans may raise a cheery whoop for David Babani and Danielle Tarento (in at 20), who have shaken the urban order up a little with their much-acclaimed Menier Chocolate Factory, a converted industrial space in Southwark.
Intriguingly, though, this isn't an especially metropolitan list, at least considered by the ludicrously London-centric nature of the British theatre business.
David Ian, who controls more seats in the UK than anyone else, is singled out for his influence in regional theatre - an influence, The Stage suggests, that should make him the envy of established West End/Broadway names such as Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh.
And there's interest further down, too. The only full-time actor to feature in the top 20 is none other than perennial suburban favourite Nigel Havers, listed not for any pyrotechnics on Shaftesbury Avenue or the South Bank but for his star turn as Maxim de Winter in a touring version of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Esteemed thoroughbreds such as Simon Russell Beale, Clare Higgins and Sir Ian McKellen are left languishing far below.
Though it largely passed under the radar of the national press - ourselves included - Havers' production, adapted by Frank McGuinness, was widely acclaimed and broke box office records in many places it visited. By any standards this Rebecca ranks as one of the theatrical events of the year, yet such is the weirdly topsy-turvy nature of these things that, while audiences caught the production in droves, it barely dented many critics' consciousness.
So is some kind of regional revival under way? I wouldn't hold your breath. But if nothing else, this list hints that maybe British theatre is alive and throwing a few high-kicks outside the M25 ghetto. That's surely worth applauding, and not just in Richmond, Woking or Canterbury (book early to avoid disappointment).
