The cultural triumvirate of the Hallé Orchestra, the Royal Exchange Theatre and The Lowry have joined forces for this new production of the 1953 hit musical Wonderful Town. Leonard Bernstein would surely have been a happy man to hear his score, dashed off in a mere five weeks at short notice, played by the 65-strong Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, who has been nursing the ambition to do the show here since he saw the 2004 Broadway production.  

Fisher has pizzazz and a gift for comedy

Everyone wants their own Madonna. Some want the mischievous, tinny, Eighties, New York club chick; some want the sexadelic, Shep Pettibone-produced art-nudie; some want the gently euphoric Ray of Light trance angel; some want the house-tinted fashionista “Vogue” queen, and so on, and so on – but what does Madonna want?

The eminence grise behind Touch is Tim Kring, who also devised Heroes, and it shows. Heroes was about a network of people with paranormal or superhuman powers, and so is Touch. In this case, we find ourselves in a universe which is underpinned by numerical patterns and mathematical probabilities. Only a select handful of humans can discern this astounding cosmic architecture and join the astral dots, one of them being Jacob "Jake" Bohm.

If you’re the kind of person who appreciates auto-recommendations based on previous purchases, then perhaps I could do worse than begin this review by saying:” If you liked The September Issue, you’ll simply love Bill Cunningham New York.” There are obvious similarities: both are Cinema Verité-style documentary profiles centred around New York and fashion, both present a series of talking heads, and both feature the formidable Anna Wintour, managing editor of American Vogue.

Phone rings, door chimes, in comes Company, this time sporting surround sound and high definition and at a cinema near you. Tonight marks a rare opportunity to see a New York gala - the sort of event that proliferates in Manhattan even as the actual volume of Broadway openings decreases - with an assemblage of names that you could never get to commit for an extended run. All that and Broadway diva Patti LuPone at her most pungently acerbic?

There was a time when Jackie Mason was the pre-eminent New York Jewish comedian. He had started his career in those postwar Catskills hotels catering to vacationing Jewish families from New York City, which became known as the Borscht Belt. The circuit spawned a list of talents including Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Joan Rivers, among many, many more, and it was a phenomenon that prompted the film Dirty Dancing. So due respect to a veteran who has been in the business for several decades and now, at the age of 75, is performing his farewell UK tour, called Fearless.

Ever since we moved into an apartment building round the corner from Ground Zero a couple of years ago, I’ve been keeping an eye on One World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, soon to be America’s tallest building. Now it’s reached 92 of its eventual 105 floors at the rate of one floor a week, its octagonal steel panels covered in blast-resistant glass soaring skywards, and Condé Nast and J Crew have signed up as some of its future occupants.

Céline Danhier’s Blank City is a useful but slightly frustrating primer on the grass-roots No Wave cinema movement that blossomed in New York’s East Village and Lower East Side in the post-punk era of the late Seventies and early Eighties. Hyper-energized and calculatedly ramshackle – thus echoing its subject matter – the documentary traces the emergence of the sync-sound super-8 filmmaking craze from the alternative art and music scene oriented around the CBGB rock club on the Bowery.

It’s a sign of Bruce Springsteen’s contribution to the canon of American rock music that we no longer spend time comparing his music to others. Springsteen’s problem tends to be living up to different versions of himself. 

It seems like every new album is hailed as a return to somebody’s favourite Springsteen, whether it’s acoustic confessional, balls-out stadium rock or great American storyteller. From what had been trailed of Wrecking Ball I was anticipating the return of the angry man-of-the-people, which is probably my favourite. Wrecking Ball has been billed as Springsteen's response to the effects of the global financial crisis, the soundtrack to the gulf between Occupy Wall Street and the big banks. Titles like “Shackled and Drawn”, “Easy Money” and “This Depression” plainly state its case, much as The Rising was a response to 9/11.

Yet it could all have gone so horribly wrong. You’ve probably heard “We Take Care of Our Own”, the album’s singalong opening hymn of solidarity. As statements of intent go it’s lyrically simple. Backed with uplifting piano, it's a bit Springsteen-by-numbers but, taken in context, introducing a mix of stylistic elements that come together to serve the album’s central themes, it’s unforgettable.

Oh, make no mistake: with lines like “when your whole world comes tumbling down all those fat cats will just think it’s funny” this album certainly presents an anger and political awareness that – dare I say it – makes the Obama-endorsing antics of Working on a Dream look like mere cheerleading. But it’s hopeful too, full of big choruses framed with gospel singalongs and elements of rootsy Americana learned from 2006’s Seeger Sessions material. “Death to My Hometown” is fighting talk presented as giddy celtic punk, and while a Springsteen-penned rap verse sounds horrendous on paper, Michelle Moore’s softer vocals and the song’s percussive loops deliver its redemptive message in a way that he has never attempted before. Purists will hate it – I disagree. 

“I’ve seen champions come and go, so if you’ve got the guts mister… bring on your wrecking ball.” The title track might be the song that brought down the old Giants Stadium in New York, but you could be forgiven for thinking that it's also a shoutout to a Bruce Springsteen who, almost 40 years since his debut, is as relevant, on-message and as willing to take risks as ever. And as a saxophone solo from the late Clarence Clemons reminds us, there’s nothing wrong with looking back.

• Bruce Springsteen: In His Own Words reviewed on theartsdesk

Overleaf: "Wrecking Ball" performed live