John Guare's brittle satire, first produced in New York in 1990, was propelled by two phenomena. The first was a certain David Hampton, a con man who persuaded a suite of gullible Manhattan socialites that he was Sidney Poitier's son (and who, when Guare's play became a hit, pestered the playwright for a cut of the profits). The second was the theory, developed by various writers and social psychologists and vastly popularised by Guare, that "everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people".

It is almost an article of faith that over the 50 years since its first production, The Caretaker has become a classic of the British theatrical canon. Its carefully calibrated medley of deadpan, slapstick, and ennui, highbrow miserable-ism and low-pressure tragedy has evolved into a kind of Woolworths pick’n’mix from which subsequent writers for the stage, radio or television can select the bits they like, to confect something recognisably post-war British in generic mood and texture.

I whizzed back to my previous reviews of BlackSkyWhite when I got home last night to check how much I’d enjoyed them in the past, so disappointing was their offering for the London International Mime Festival, USSR Was Here. Russians have colonised mime theatre with a razor-edged passion and ingenuity in theatrecraft that usually makes any Russian company a must-see in the Mimefest.

'Tis the season to be jolly. Or, if you're a small theatre and choose not to stoop to panto, time perhaps to be a little light, anyway, tickle some tastebuds. Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals (1775) is his best-known play, followed by The School for Scandal and The Critic. In his early twenties when he wrote The Rivals (and then, after its first London outing was howled down, rewrote it), Sheridan spawned a skittish, playful, self-consciously silly classic, arch and brilliant.

Over the last 20 years or so, the genre of music we have learnt to associate with the violent assault of a regime upon its adversaries is hard rock blared out on massive speakers at ear-splitting volume, 24/7. First tried out with decisive results by the American military on General "Pineapple Face" Noriega of Panama in 1989, it has been refined in recent times to break down the resistance of innumerable presumed jihadis and insurgents in US detention.

Audiences genuinely love Legally Blonde, and all but the most churlish of critics should crack plenty a smile, as well. A feel-good show that - unusually, in my experience - actually does leave you on a high, this stage adaptation of the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film benefits immeasurably from a rapturous star performance from Sheridan Smith as the unlikely heroine of Harvard Law School, Elle Woods.

If ever you wanted to understand the art of acting and how it gives life to words on the page, this is a good place to start. Actress Linda Marlowe, under the direction of Di Sherlock, has adapted Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s 1999 collection, The World's Wife - which gives a wry, subversive and feminist voice to characters (real or imagined) written out of history, mythology and the Bible - and gives the words form on stage. It is an exquisite treat.

Endure this bafflingly pointless, sparsely staged and hopelessly dated musical, and you might find that the prospect of bloody death in the jaws of an enraged tiger somewhat loses its sting; you certainly won’t care whether that’s the fate in store for the show’s bland balladeer hero. A curious concoction of forgettable chirpy ditties, half-hearted satire and lots of twee larking about that is reminiscent of children’s television from 40 years ago, The Lady or the Tiger's downright weirdness doesn’t make it any less unrewarding.