Johnny Fox

When your brilliantly conceptualised stage musical combining a cult Madonna movie with the music of Blondie crashes and burns in the hands of incompetent producers, directors and choreographers you turn it into a one-man-show monologue of hilarious anecdotes and pithy backbiting. But what do you do if that fails, turn it into another musical with a backtrack by JLS? At the Leicester Square Theatre.

Not everything has to be a blockbuster: this is a nice little production in a nice little theatre, with a couple of engaging performances by Sara Crowe and Daniel Hill.  It just isn't a very good play. At Jermyn Street Theatre.

Yes, it's the "one about the postal order" back for a fresh airing in the West End in a Lindsay Posner production which plays down the politics but vividly paints the family drama trapped in William Morris-wallpapered stiff-upper-lip genteel domesticity, right down to its french windows and stagey dialogue. At The Old Vic Theatre.

Mark Haddon's sensitive gentle and personal novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time explodes on to the stage in a dynamic production which bombards you with sound, light and the fury of an intelligent mind trapped by logic.  You can not miss this.  At the Apollo Theatre.

"I belong to Glasgow" goes the popular song, and this sharp and energetic musical explores whether Glasgow belongs to you when your parents are asylum seekers – even if you were born there. Strong, gritty, street-wise and unashamedly polemical, it's tailor-made for the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

The Vortex, the succes de scandale play which established Noel Coward as a force to be reckoned with is given a polished and revelatory revival in Stephen Unwin's production at Kingston. Well worth the trip to Zone 6 for some sharply-observed performances and a take on the wit and wisdom of the master that's less frothy and flimsy than most of the genre.

An unsavourily-plotted antidote to Guys and Dolls, the cult Mackendrick 50's movie was re-worked by A Chorus Line's Marvin Hamlisch for a 2002 Broadway opening that never really took off. In a more intimate setting appropriate to the New York night clubs through which the characters trawl, Arcola boss Mehmet Ergen directs a cracking, energetic production with outstanding choreography. 

A series of vignettes charts the pattern of relationships from teen age to old age, but some of the jokes are even more whiskery and in a post-Avenue Q era, it's best seen as a sweet piece of nostalgia for a more innocent, and theatrically simpler, time. At Riverside Studios.

Michael Strassen's inviting production of Call Me Madam at the Union breaks new ground in a minimal staging. His coup is to cast Lucy Williamson as a younger and more vivacious Sally than the usual 'old broad': playing it closer to Judy Garland than Ethel Merman, she's the heart and soul of the show. At the Union Theatre.

We’re a bit late to the New England clam-bake for Carousel but the good news is that, despite almost universally enthusiastic broadsheet reviews, there are still seats available for the rest of the run to September 15. At the Barbican Centre.