An outsider who could give the ENO its groove back

Mr Doran promises to bring a breath of fresh air to a company in desperate need of it

I gather that there was some consternation at the English National Opera this week. London's evening paper published a list of 50 good things about the capital; and the ENO was not among them. Tate Modern, the Almeida and a host of supposedly hip cultural venues were listed, but not the poor old London Coliseum. For some at the ENO this was the nadir of its descent from the powerhouse days of the late Eighties, when there were few hipper ways to spend an evening than watching Carmen being garrotted on the bonnet of a car or Rigoletto serving drinks in a New York bar in one or another of the latest mould-breaking productions.

Personally, I don't think the ENO's exclusion from yet another wretched list is significant. What was significant was the ENO chairman Martin Smith introducing the company's distinguished music director Paul Daniel to the press earlier this year as the man "who runs the music side of the business". That for me was the nadir.

Many believed there was little hope of a restoration of the company's fortunes when Smith and his board appointed the relatively unknown Sean Doran, an Irishman running the Perth festival in Australia, to be artistic director. As Smith was known to be keen to have a say in programming as well as in the numbers of musicians and singers needed, it was widely assumed that Doran would prove a convenient yes man.

I've come across Mr Doran; and I sense that Smith could be in for a shock and the opera world could be in for a pleasant surprise. Granted, this is a man still rubbing his eyes on arriving at the most controversial company in the capital from what he cheerfully describes as "the most isolated city in the world". (He tells me there is some debate as to whether the nearest city to Perth is Adelaide or Jakarta). But he promises to bring a breath of fresh air to a company in desperate need of it. Certainly, he is known to have strong views on the distinct roles of chairman and artistic director.

I would also not be at all surprised if he brings in artistic changes. Friends in whom he has confided claim that his outsider's eye has already been struck by the odd anomaly which he intends to put right. For example, the English National Opera performs precious few English operas. So brush up not just your Britten but your Purcell as well.

Mr Doran, who was a performer before he became an administrator, is known to be keen to mount small-scale operas in venues outside the Coliseum. And I know that he is a closet jazz fan, who would love to experiment with opera singers performing jazz both on the stage and in the foyers.

But along with the experiments must come some more basic and urgent action. Mr Doran is thought to want more dramatic flair on stage. If so, he must bring in more theatre directors to supplement the opera specialists. Also, while the company is second to none in bringing on young singers, it lacks a good range of top-class artists. It is breathtaking but true that the ENO would have difficulty in casting a first-class Tosca or Traviata from among its own ranks. If Doran can woo some of the ENO exiles back to a newly stable company, he could make it the place to be once more.

Incidentally, I hear that the most common complaint that Mr Doran has found in his meetings with staff is that, prior to his arrival, management closed the canteen. That was not a tactful move by Mr Smith. Never underestimate the importance of the lunching side of the business.

¿ There is little doubt that the place to be at the moment is the National Theatre. Nicholas Hytner's production of Henry V , with powerful but never heavy-handed allusions to Tony Blair and the Iraq war, was so fresh and exciting that I found it hard to stop thinking about it for days. Most of the seats were just £10 under a sponsorship deal with Travelex. I understand that my own Lister Experiment campaign for cheaper seats figured in the early thinking behind this scheme. I have little doubt that the cheap seats allied to a great production will bring in a new audience. And the evening had a further bonus, a really good programme that traced the differing interpretations of the play and its use as propaganda from Shakespeare's time to the present day. Laurence Olivier's patriotic film version in 1944 cut the distinctly "off message" scene in which Henry brutally orders the killing of French prisoners. Charles Kean's 1859 production had 200 extras on stage for Henry's triumphant return to London – not caring that the scene isn't actually in the play.

¿ The new riverboat service linking Tate Britain and Tate Modern will be launched next week. It was to have been called Tate à Tate. It has now been decided to call it Tate to Tate. The original name was mildly witty; the new name is prosaic. Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate's director, should have more faith in the gallery going public. Some of them even have a smattering of French.

d.lister@independent.co.uk