Eureka’s second volume of Laurel and Hardy shorts catches the pair in 1928 on the cusp of their successful transition to the sound era, two of the 10 films originally released with synchronised sound effects and music.

Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of the noisiest in the repertoire, is the real ticket to recharging the batteries. Gianandrea Noseda, on the latest stage of his bracing journey through the composer’s symphonies and embracing the London Symphony Orchestra’s hugely popular Half Six Fix series, served it up with panache both in word and deed.

Top Brownie points for the BBC Philharmonic for being one of the first (maybe the first?) to celebrate the birth centenary of Pierre Boulez this year. His Rituel – in memoriam Bruno Maderna was paired somewhat uneasily with a second half of bonbons by Ravel (it’s his 150^th anniversary year, too).

Mark Wigglesworth was the maestro who piloted both parts of the programme, however, showing equally calm assurance and sympathy with their differing idioms.

The misadventures and misbehaviours of the English upper-middle class is catnip for TV executives. All those posh types on which us hoi polloi can sit in delicious self-righteous judgement, as we marvel at their cut glass accents, well-tailored clothes and ostentatious wealth. Meanwhile their worlds are always collapsing due to villainy, venality or misconceived virtue. Lovely stuff! 

"Captain" Jack Boyle is a fantasist, a mythmaker, a storyteller. He relishes an audience – usually his sidekick, Joxer. There is a theatricality in his part as written by O'Casey, but in Matthew Warchus's hands this is made an explicit element of the whole production, culminating in the unexpected finale. When the first scene opens, swags of red stage curtains rise and remain looped in place throughout, framing the action.

One of the Finborough Theatre’s Artistic Director, Neil McPherson’s, gifts is an uncanny ability to find long-forgotten plays that work, right here, right now. He’s struck gold again with The Silver Cord, presenting its first London production for over 95 years. 

On opening night, there’s always a little tension in the air. Tech rehearsals and previews can only go so far – this is the moment when an audience, some wielding pens like scalpels, sit in judgement. Having attended thousands on the critics’ side of the fourth wall, I can tell you that there’s plenty of crackling expectation and a touch of fear in the stalls, too. None more so than when the show is billed as a new musical.

The Baker's Wife closed on the way to Broadway in 1976, since which time Stephen Schwartz's stubbornly resistent if sweetly scored musical has been revived and reworked all over the map, not least by Gordon Greenberg.

Virtuosity and a wildly beating heart are compatible in Richard Jones’s finely calibrated production of Renaissance woman Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. It hits hard as a 1920s mechanical symphony with a lyrical slow movement and words/cliches used like musical refrains. There’s an army of generals at work in the team of 16 actors, led by fearless Rosie Sheehy, and in the genius lighting, movement, sound, design. You rarely see such meticulous, detailed work in the theatre.

Chances are few enough to catch Polish composer Szymanowski’s densely brilliant 1920s score for a ballet about love in the Tatra mountains. Harnasie (Robbers) is so little known that we need a clear line through action and sung text. That all went out of the window in the projections of renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor and visual artist Ben Cullen Williams.