Plays directed by women suffer misogynistic treatment from the “dead white men” in the critics’ seats, the director of the National Theatre has claimed.

Nicholas Hytner alleges that veteran reviewers are sometimes unable to see past female directors’ gender when reviewing their plays and also “snigger” at lesbian directors.

He told The Times: “They would be horrified by the accusation, but I’m afraid I’m making it. I think it’s fair enough to say that too many of the theatre critics are dead white men. They don’t know it’s happened to them but it has.”

Senior critics were appalled by the comments, which they described as factually incorrect, pointing to the fact that more women theatre directors than ever had thriving careers.

Five of the 12 current and forthcoming shows at the National are directed by women, as are the hit productions Mamma Mia, Equus and Happy Days. A survey published last year found that about a quarter of directors were women: still far from parity but evidence of progress.

Thea Sharrock, 30, who directed Equus, said: “It’s really changed during the last ten years or so. I think it’s a much healthier balance now.”

Hytner, 50, did not believe that this change had been adequately reflected by the critics, whose opinions can make or break a play. “I think it’s a very good thing that at least on Sunday there’s a female voice or two amongst the theatre critics,” he said. “The theatre establishment changes regularly and representatively because the audience changes. We have to change or the audience would stop coming.”

He said that many of the daily newspaper critics were in their jobs when he was at university. “I won’t stay in my job for as long as they stay in theirs. When I become a dead white male I will only be hired to do dead white male theatre.” Some critics could not help but notice that a play was directed by a woman, he said.

Hytner is credited with revitalising the National Theatre since taking over in 2003. Plays such as Jerry Springer: The Opera, Elmina’s Kitchen and The History Boys have thrilled the critics, while the £10 tickets scheme has swelled the audience.

However, the daily newspaper reviews of A Matter of Life and Death, Emma Rice’s adaptation of the classic war film for the National, appear to have ruffled his normally charming manner. Criticism by four male critics ranged from lukewarm to hostile, and Hytner predicted that the female reviewers writing for the Sunday newspapers would be much more complimentary, which they were.

“In private the female critics are voluble about this. I know that Katie Mitchell [a director at the National] gets misogynistic reviews, where everything they say is predicated on her sex. Gay males have never had a problem in the theatre . . . The ones who have it worst are the gay women. They really get it in the neck and there’s a lot of sniggering.”

Michael Billington, The Guardian’s theatre critic since 1971, called the accusation offensive and preposterous. “I would say that Nick’s comments are balderdash and piffle. It seems to me to be ageism. We are not dead, whatever else we are, and the idea that critics review productions on the basis of gender and sexual orientation is absolute nonsense.”

Ones to watch

Thea Sharrock directed Equus in the West End. Was artistic director of the Southwark Playhouse and The Gate Theatre

Marianne Elliott associate director at the National. Will direct Saint Joan this year

Emma Rice Acclaimed productions include The Red Shoes, The Bacchae and Tristan & Yseult

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