HOWZAT

For someone drawn in by the “magic”, doesn’t that make it all rather corporate? Panter shrugs. “Bit by bit it does become more corporate because that is the way you get things done and sustain a business. You grow activities, and you get greater variety and quality and stability — and stability is so important in a business that has many areas that are quite volatile.”

As ATG’s managing director he leads from the front, dashing round productions and joint ventures, while Squire — executive director — handles acquisitions and board committees.

So who reports to who? Panter giggles. “Technically Rosemary reports to me, but I don’t think it ever works like that.”

In fact, Nottingham-born Squire says she takes care of the business detail, while Panter provides the inspiration. “He’s unbelievably creative,” says Squire. “One of those people with 101 ideas.”

Many of which, you’d guess, he writes down in the notebooks he always carries with him. He pats the full sheet of hand-written scrawl in front of him — his preparation for meeting me. “In this business, you can only pay the bills and survive if you’re well organised. I have my lists, back-up documents, numbers. What we do as a business is blend the commercial and the creative, and balance that effectively as a whole.”

But isn’t he really a thwarted thespian? He certainly has the look — bristly, goateed, swathed in black like a mournful badger — and he loves the big gesture. “Not at all,” he laughs nervously. “I am quite shy on public occasions, okay with small groups.”

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Greg Dyke, the former BBC boss who is another long-time ATG investor, chortles when I tell him that one. “You’ve obviously never seen Howard dancing at a party, then.” Dyke describes Panter as a “larger-than-life character”, and a big-picture person. “What you need in business is people with a vision, and Howard is not afraid of big ideas. And he’s really good with the talent.”

Panter attributes his drive to a combination of factors. Born in Middlesex, but brought up initially in Australia, where his father ran a factory for EMI, he says he absorbed the Aussies’ “can do” attitude at an early stage.

Later, sent to boarding school in Britain and dumped in the “C stream” because of his dyslexia, he found solace in the arts, and in organising schoolmates to do things. “I ran the theatre, cinema club, jazz club, the pirate radio. You name it.”

Whereas his big brother Andrew went into business and rose to become head of Wimpey Homes — “he has retired early, as he keeps reminding me” — Panter set his heart on the theatre. He completed a production course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and in the late 1960s got his first job, as lighting designer for the London Contemporary Dance Company.

“And since then I’ve done just about every job in the theatre apart from actor,” he says. That, he adds, gives him real breadth of experience.