He’s entitled to blow his own trumpet. A change in the way we “consume” theatre has happened since NT Live’s inception at Hytner’s behest in 2009 with Phèdre. No longer do you have to be in the building on the night to get a ringside view of the action and experience a sense of occasion. These days, between 100,000 and 150,000 people can watch a typical NT Live broadcast from the comfort of their local cinema. When you consider that the Olivier theatre holds a little more than a thousand spectators, the National’s output has acquired the trappings of a mass medium. Sure, we’re not talking Premier League numbers – but the gulf that once existed between the kind of audiences Laurence Olivier could reach on the silver screen and on the stage is shrinking, thanks to the roll-out of digital cinema technology in the past decade.