Lindsey Jordan was 16 when she released her first EP as Snail Mail on her local punk label Sister Polygon Records. Two years later, she has graduated from high school and signed to Matador Records, home of Stephen Malkmus, Kurt Vile and Helium. Lush is Jordan’s debut full-length album, which she describes as being “more deliberate” than her previous work.

Greta Gerwig, in her hugely acclaimed, semi-autobiographical directing debut (a Golden Globe for best director, five Academy Award nominations) opens Lady Bird with a Joan Didion quote: “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.”

Watching the YouTube clips that accompany the release of the Vamps’ third album, Night and Day (Night Edition), it becomes immediately apparent how keen they are to come across as a "real" band. They talk eloquently about the writing process and are frequently filmed playing guitars. Good on them, we’re supposed to think. Good. On. Them. Well, quite. Except…

After the persuasive opening singles “Chained to the Rhythm”, “Bon Appétit” and “Swish Swish”, as well as all Katy Perry’s pre-release talk about “purposeful pop”, there was a feeling that Witness might push the boat out, taking Perry’s music into more intriguing terrain than previously. Perhaps it might even achieve the leaps forward made by Beyoncé with last year’s masterpiece, Lemonade, or Madonna’s transformations with producers William Orbit and Stuart Price, in 1998 and 2005 respectively. Unfortunately, while occasionally tasty, it cannot meet those comparisons, yet it’s still Perry’s most enjoyable and consistent album.

There’s a sideline in heartache – power ballad “Miss You More”, which includes lines such as “So strange you know all my secrets, keep them safe”, will have sleb-watchers pondering whether Perry’s ex, Russell Brand, is the subject. But, mostly, it’s full of self-empowerment epics that are her stock in trade, notably the enormous “Hey Hey Hey” which features couplets such as “’Cause I can be zen and I can be the storm, yeah!/Smell like a rose and I pierce like a thorn, yeah!”.

It’s a perfect slice of pop, lightly marinated in calypso

A tried and tested team of hit-spewing producer-songwriters, such as Max Martin, Sia, Jeff Bhasker and Duke Dumont (as well as Jack Garratt and Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor) make sure the whole thing sounds irresistibly gigantic. Happily, it has sonic depth, rather than Perry’s usual compressed earbud candy. “Roulette” is electro-pop for giant beings, while “Pendulum” sounds like a funky 1970s Elton John number inflated to 21^st century stadium vastness. The two housey numbers, “Swish Swish” (featuring Nicki Minaj) and “Déjà Vu” are warm and enjoyable, and the bouncy ode to oral sex, “Bon Appétit”, is suitably frisky and rude (“Got me spread like a buffet”).

The stand-out track, by far, however, is “Chained to the Rhythm”, co-written by Sia and featuring Bob Marley’s grandson, Skip. It’s a perfect slice of pop, lightly marinated in calypso with lyrics and a melody that brilliantly muster both existential hopelessness and remaining upbeat against bad odds. It seems to be about everything from political complacency to being blind-sided by hedonism. It’s a song that will deservedly have a long and well-loved life. The rest of the album sits in its shadow, but still has its moments.

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Overleaf: Watch the video for Katy Perry "Chained to the Rhythm"

There's something to be said for encountering a playwright fresh out of the starting gate. Since his debut play Speech & Debate premiered Off Broadway almost a decade ago, Stephen Karam has gone on to write two altogether wonderful plays, the most recent of which, The Humans, won last year's Tony. This fledgling effort isn't in that league but has its charms, and Tom Attenborough's defibrillator production further marks out the fast-rising Patsy Ferran as a talent busily making her own way towards the big time. 

Ferran's success in the play's pivotal part of Diwata is doubly notable given the unachieved ambitions that beset her character, who wants nothing more than the musical theatre renown that might come from starring as Winifred in a Salem, Oregon, high school production of the Mary Rodgers musical Once Upon a Mattress. Shut out from that opportunity, Diwata is channeling her energy into a new musical, Crucible, based on the Arthur Miller classic and an inevitable choice for a budding thesp who happens to inhabit a town called Salem. Mary Warren, Diwata has decided, could be her star-making role, not least if she could bring to it something of the welly that Idina Menzel gave to Wicked. 

While pondering the dynamics of so-called "Group Interpretation", which doubles as one of the titles given to the various scenes, Diwata falls in with two male students embarked upon quests of their own. Solomon (Tony Revolori, best known as the endearing lobby boy from The Grand Budapest Hotel and pictured right) is an inquisitive 16-year-old who during the course of the 95-minute play must answer some fundamental questions about himself. By contrast, the slightly older Howie (Douglas Booth, putting his celluloid poutiness to one side) is first seen engaging in online banter with a male stranger, only to report later that his own gay self-confidence dates back to around the time that he was 10.

This motley trio of teens are brought together by the debating society that gives the play its title and that boasts an ardent if none-too-numerous membership of three. (The play's two other characters – both authoritative adults – are ably played by the same actress, Charlotte Lucas.) The band of misfits conjoined by a life online represents some kind of defense against the darker aspects of a world that includes a predatory if unseen drama teacher: the published text of the play reproduces some of the cyber-chat in 2004 that led Karam toward his play between the onetime mayor of Spokane, Washington, and an 18-year-old who was clearly the inspiration for Howie here. 

The bittiness of the whole and the sense of the play needing to kickstart itself afresh with each scene starts to pall after a while, and one wonders whether the forthcoming film version, starring Karam alumna Sarah Steele, might allow for a smoother experience. Rather too much is made of Salem as a cultural moniker, though the passage of time between 2007 and now has resulted in a fleeting (and funny) reference to Mike Pence. 

Nor, at least on this occasion, are the roles of equal weight, at least not with the ceaselessly watchable Ferran hitting every sad-funny note while her large eyes absorb the injustices that have befallen Diwata's young life. Blessed with comic timing that makes one wonder when TV will get smart and develop a show entirely around her, Ferran mines the comic gold in a throwaway remark like "please don't riff" without ever once milking the moment. Let's just say that Diwata may languish in quasi-obscurity, but the actress playing her is on her way.

• Speech & Debate at Trafalgar Studios until 1 April
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