What will Damien Hirst do with the proceeds from his £111m sale at Sotheby’s? One man beating a path to his door will be Mark Getty, the new chairman of the National Gallery, which is trying to save two Titians.

Getty, a breath of fresh air after the departure of his predecessor, the pompous Peter Scott, tells me he will be getting in touch with Hirst and some other British artists who have made fortunes from the contemporary art boom. The son of the late Sir Paul, himself such a generous benefactor to the National, Getty is well suited to spearhead the campaign to buy, initially, Titian’s Diana and Actaeon. Fifty million is needed by the end of the year.

The best reviews for the recent The Wizard of Oz at the Festival Hall were for the dog Toto, played by a cute westie terrier. Mind you, unofficial notices were much more favourable - but these, scandalously, were posted on the hall’s website by staffers.

Yet why was this production, suited more for Christmas time, put on in summer in a venue that itself is unsuitable for theatre? Sometimes fewer than 800 people were in the 2,120-seat Festival Hall. And with capacity over the five-week run at only 57%, a show that was supposed to make “a bumper profit” only just broke even.

The Festival Hall only reopened in June last year after a £110m refurbishment. But a few months ago it needed another £16m from the Arts Council to pay for more building work and to bolster programming. The Southbank Centre, which runs the Festival Hall, has a new chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, a City chap who until recently also chaired the successful Almeida theatre in north London. He must now take a very close look at his centre’s artistic programming and finances, as well as sort out who will replace the centre’s chief executive, Michael Lynch, who leaves next March. Lynch’s successor must be given real authority to run the place.

I had a jolly evening in late July at the Royal Opera House watching Monkey: Journey to the West, a musical extravaganza composed by Damon Albarn. Unfortunately, it was only possible to run it there for six performances. Monkey is now going to be put on at the O2 (the old Millennium Dome) for a month from November 8. I hope it reaches an even wider audience - although with tickets at between £30 and £65, it will cost more than the £25 I paid for a decent seat at Covent Garden.

Talking of pricing, it’s good that the new Donmar season at Wyndham’s, which opened on Wednesday with Ivanov, is offering all seats at nonWest End prices. Top whack is just £32.50, while 130 seats for each performance are only £10. Michael Grandage, artistic director of the season, tells me costs have been kept down because actors including Kenneth Branagh (Ivanov), Judi Dench (Madame De Sade) and Jude Law (Hamlet) have given up their usual megabucks wages for a top fee of just £750 a week.

Another star who also makes a fortune in movies is returning to the National Theatre next year. Helen Mirren will be Phèdre in Racine’s play. The National is now leading the charge from today by introducing Sunday matinee performances (sponsored by this paper), starting with the return of the superb War Horse. May the West End follow, even if that means not opening on Monday evenings.

Has the BBC, which was virtually undone by Alastair Campbell over the row about Andrew Gilligan and his accusations about secret Iraq dossiers, fully kissed and made up with the former No 10 spinmeister?

I recently saw him on Newsnight talking about Gordon Brown’s problems. I noticed, by the way, that he was wearing trainers with a suit. No doubt this fitness fanatic had run all the way from his Hampstead home to White City.

Now the BBC and Campbell have signed a deal for a documentary about his 1970s mental breakdown. It will, conveniently for Campbell, be aired just before his novel, All in the Mind, which itself looks at mental illness, is published in November.

richard.brooks@sunday-times.co.uk

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