When did you last visit the National Portrait Gallery? If, like me, you haven’t darkened its doors since it reopened following a £43 million makeover and expansion in 2023, stand by for a shock.

Instead of being just a selection of the famous faces featuring in our island story – the politicians, poets, scientists and showbiz giants who did their bit to make Britain great – the NPG’s collection is being deliberately diluted to provide a portrait of ‘ordinary people’ who make up the tattered fabric of the nation today.

I made my first visit to the gallery since it reopened this week. It used to be my favourite London cultural haunt, and it is still a magnificent repository of 12,500 painted and sculpted images of the (mainly) great and good, along with a quarter of a million photographs of prominent people who have featured in headlines since the 19th century.

It isn’t only a collection of famous mugshots, however; it is also a........

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