Why this is a great age of theatre

It is in the nature of many "golden ages" not to announce themselves while they are happening: I doubt Calderon de la Barca sat writing Life Is a Dream, remarking to himself how nice it was to be part of the 17th-century Spanish dramatic flowering that we've long recognised as such. But is it possible we are inhabiting a privileged time for the theatre — playhouses both large and small are claiming recession-busting record attendances — and a range of offerings as healthily diverse as has been seen in years?

Sure, reality TV brings in punters who might not otherwise go to a show but the story hardly begins and ends with the likes of Diana Vickers, Jodie Prenger and Lee Mead. There are 10 other magic ingredients in place, all individual indicators of the good health of the London stage which taken together make the case for a new golden age.

1. EVENT THEATRE
It's not enough at the moment to be any old show; there has to be quality that elevates the evening into something special. London has been notably good for that of late, whether we're talking two contrasting Hamlets in David Tennant and Jude Law or a sequence of plays such as the Tricycle's The Great Game, which put Afghanistan on the local theatrical map.

Perfect partner: Damian Lewis will star in The Misanthrope alongside Keira Knightley

Celebrity casting can pay off big time, too. Blood Brothers has been given the best 21st birthday present imaginable courtesy of Mel C's West End debut, hopes are high for Keira Knightley's West End turn in The Misanthrope, and April will see the arrival on Shaftesbury Avenue of the current Broadway ensemble of Hair. If the promise of all that first-act nudity isn't an event, what is?

2. SEX AND SEXUALITY
I mean, come on: it isn't just the spirit of liberation implicit in Hair that reminds one that the theatre is a decidedly sexy space. Play titles such as Cock tease audiences into attending what in fact is an acute (I almost said penetrating) analysis of desire. It helps to have a generation of young actors — Ben Whishaw, Cock's co-star, comes to mind — who make of sexuality something tantalisingly indeterminate. Sometimes, however, what you want is sizzle: cue Kim Cattrall, due in the West End next March in Private Lives. Surely Sex and the City's Samantha should know a thing or two about bumping into ex‑lovers on a balcony.

3. THE ROYAL COURT

Big tease: Ben Whishaw in Cock

The Court is part of a supercharged subsidised theatre pack (think the National and Donmar) that remains the envy of the English-speaking theatre: small wonder that three Court entries — That Face, Enron and The Pride — are opening in New York in the first few months of 2010.

The playhouse under Dominic Cooke's stewardship has rarely seemed in ruder health, as shown by the imminent transfer of two plays (Enron and Jerusalem) to the West End for the first such double-pronged attack since 1968. Both those plays were seen on the Court main stage, leaving the likes of Alia Bano's funny and tender Muslim comedy, Shades, and Polly Stenham's drama of familial abandonment, Tusk Tusk, to the tiny Theatre Upstairs.

Cock confirms the studio venue as one of the most exciting spaces in town — and most exclusive, given how difficult it is to secure a ticket.

4. MUSICAL REVISALS'
London has become the home of the revival given a fresh twist — as can be seen most eccentrically at the Young Vic's current Annie Get Your Gun, with Annie Oakley got up as Mickey Mouse.

Musical "revisal": Tamzin Outhwaite stars in Sweet Charity

Such productions are where most of the musical excitement lies these days, not least at the Menier Chocolate Factory, which has made a house specialty of re-evaluating the musical that you already thought you knew. Next up for the Southwark venue is Sweet Charity, starring Tamzin Outhwaite, opening next week, while the venue's A Little Night Music, now starring Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones, is in previews on Broadway. The Donmar's looming Passion should also mark Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday in style.

5. MARK RYLANCE
So the days of the true theatre greats are gone? Think again, with particular reference to Rylance, whose instant standing ovation at last week's Evening Standard awards testifies to the particular esteem in which he is held by his peers. No one seems so quietly able to reinvent himself with each role as an actor (and erstwhile actor-manager).

I first saw him in 1983 playing an elfin Ariel opposite Derek Jacobi's RSC Prospero and he has since gone on to be the best Olivia in my experience in a Globe Theatre Twelfth Night. He made history in the revival of the Sixties comedy Boeing-Boeing for playing the same role of the provincial friend on two continents with two totally distinct accents: as a Welshman in the West End and an open-eyed, sweet but slightly dim Wisconsin fella on Broadway, where he won a Tony.

How fitting that in Jez Butterworth's mighty Jerusalem, transferring next month to the Apollo, he plays a renegade, Johnny Byron, who believes in giants.

6. PRODUCERS WITH A PASSION
The list of producers for a Broadway show is so long these days that it seems as if anyone who contributed $5 gets an above-the-title credit.

Not so, happily, in London where impresarios still leave their imprimatur, boldly proceeding where lesser folk would stumble.