This month’s picks include a Starlight Express intro for kids, a rollicking wedding play at the National and an explosive hour of dance

Micheál Mac Liammóir’s 1960 solo show interweaved the private and public lives of Oscar Wilde with excerpts from the great Irish wit’s oeuvre. Alastair Whatley – who directed The Importance of Being Earnest a few years ago – recently performed Mac Liammóir’s monologue at Reading Rep. A recording of that production, directed by Michael Fentiman, is available on Original Online from 1 July.

The side-splitting Something Rotten! fondly mocks Shakespeare and musicals at the annual arts jamboree celebrated for both. It is a witty accompaniment to fresh takes on Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and Cymbeline

Something is rotten in the province of Ontario. It is the second number of the tentpole musical at Canada’s Stratford festival, the Shakespeare jamboree that has celebrated the British Bard of Avon for more than 70 years. This is a town where a street, a school and a pet hospital are called Romeo. But what’s that I hear? “God, I hate Shakespeare!” fumes the fellow on the revolutionary thrust stage of Stratford’s Festival theatre, asking how “a mediocre actor from a measly little town” managed to become “the brightest jewel in England’s royal crown”. The sacrilege rages on as the showboating Bard himself strides on to hog the spotlight for the song Will Power, and the “sultan of sonnets” brandishes a huge quill like a mic and shamelessly flirts with fans.

Bawdy, barmy and almost incessantly hilarious, Something Rotten! is the standout show of the 2024 Stratford season, fusing the festival’s two major traditions of Shakespeare and musical theatre. This Renaissance tale of budding playwright brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom (Mark Uhre and Henry Firmston), toiling in the shadow of the all-conquering Shakespeare (Jeff Lillico), picked up 10 Tony award nominations on its premiere in 2015 including best score (for brothers Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick) and best book (co-written by longtime Guardian columnist John O’Farrell). Despite such success, it has inexplicably taken almost a decade for it to receive a UK premiere – but now a concert version will be staged for two nights at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane in August.

Savoy theatre, London
Plastics and fellow students give high-grade performances but the songs and production don’t get quite enough As

It’s 20 years since Tina Fey’s sharp-tongued tale of Plastics, Mathletes and non-regular moms laid bare the high-school jungle. The musical version – previously staged on Broadway, then filmed – brings the story bang up to date with gags about Ozempic, smartphone filters and social media. What it doesn’t have is one killer tune like Dead Girl Walking from Heathers: The Musical or It’s All Happening from Bring It On – or, indeed, those shows’ sleek, set-piece choreography.

Several songs almost get there such as Stupid With Love, performed by North Shore High newbie Cady (Charlie Burn), in the flush of “calculust” with Aaron (Daniel Bravo) from her math class. Each of the school’s clique of immaculate Plastics is given a solo. Georgina Castle, as the feared and revered Regina, arrives armed with a wicked glint and weapons-grade lipgloss, drawling her name as if she savours its taste. Her revenge belter Someone Gets Hurt, performed in the glow of the school photocopier as she disseminates her infamous Burn Book, is the high point of Finn Ross and Adam Young’s video design. Depth is given not to Cady but to Gretchen (Elèna Gyasi), whose despairing fragility makes her feel “like an iPhone without a case”, while Grace Mouat as the delightfully dim Karen perfects a dazed gait akin to Amanda Seyfried’s blankness in the role on screen.