A midwinter night’s dream at the Barbican. Those who like their pop music performed by chaps with jeans, preferably gazing at their shoes, and are attached to certain ideas of authenticity would have run screaming for the exit. The Irrepressibles were pop as icy spectacle, as dizzying melodrama, while Gabby Young & Other Animals were raiding the musical dressing-up box and emerging with bits of French chanson, German cabaret and slinky tangos, and having a ball doing it.

Welcome to the stinking, sprawling Bayou Mansions – the thorn in a prosperous city’s side, the “short-and-curly hair in the mouthful of sponge cake”. So cramped there isn’t even room to swing a rat (and there are plenty), so corrosive that everything here starts life as a bad smell. Forget the enchanted worlds of fable and fairy tale, this is a dystopian childhood fantasy masterminded by the select team of Kurt Weill, Kafka and the Wicked Witch from Snow White. As delicious as it is delicately malevolent, The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is a strychnine-laced gumdrop of a show, and slips down all too sweetly.

Another week, another “fix” in the glorious cavalcade of manipulation, ill-feeling, class hatred, allegations of racism and – oh yes – singing that is The X Factor. This week it was another shift in the rules, seemingly in order to allow the judges to vote off 50-year-old Irish till operator and Shirley Bassey soundalike Mary Byrne and keep in a quantifiably worse singer, the steely-eyed and prematurely wizened teenager from Malvern, Cher Lloyd.

Felicity Fitz-Frisky and Hansel Amadeus Mannish (aka Laura Corcoran and Matthew Jones) describe their act as “twisted pop cabaret” but that doesn’t begin to encapsulate a show that expertly parodies modern music. An easy target, you think, but this duo bring real singing and musical talent, plus a deliciously bitchy touch to the subject.

Every time I go to Sadler’s Wells now I come out wondering if there’s something wrong with my hearing, so loud and numbing are their speakers. It’s a blight on a lot of shows, but on none more so than Shoes, because this is the first major London production written by that celebrated musical witsmith Mr Richard Thomas since his Jerry Springer, The Opera, and last night I missed probably half the words that I’m guessing should be the chief merit.

Ladies and gents, the time has come. The Strumpettes are ready and set for Sunday night at Glasto! The tent is packed, along with three pairs of red patent heels, three figure-huggin’ frocks, three retro-style microphones and three beautiful ukuleles (a soprano for Bettina, to match her harmonies; a concert deluxe for me, and a tenor for Velma). The Strumpettes sure don’t travel light.

The truth of it is, we're kinda a high-maintenance band. So I tell ya, the best thing about performin’ at Glastonbury is this: we get to use the “artists’ facilities”, which in short means we get showers and a proper, clean powder room, thank the Lord! I mean really, three classy ladies like us having to face the long drop? I don’t think so. So now the only thing we really gotta worry about is all that mud. Here’s hopin’ for blue skies…

Right now we’re feelin’ pretty positive about it all. We had a rare ol’ time at our gig last Saturday night – after a somewhat inauspicious start, I might add. After drivin’ to the other side of this sprawlin’ ol' metropolis, we found ourselves starin’ at the world’s tiniest pub, on the corner of no-man’s land and the least swingin’ neighbourhood in south-west London. Hell, we were this close to turnin’ back.

And it got worse. When we started settin’ up, we hit upon a little snag. Our little ukes - all courtesy of London’s finest ukulele emporium, the Duke of Uke - each have their own pick-up fitted inside so we can plug ’em in to the sound system and give ‘em a bit of oomph. But no sirree, not today; the DI boxes weren’t playin’ ball, which meant no amplification, which meant we had to play unplugged.

But The Strumpettes are resilient young things, we bounced back and sailed through the first set, mostly of safe songs, coped admirably in the second set where we road-tested our new numbers and even managed our solos – Velma’s “I Wanna be Loved by You”, Betty’s “My Funny Valentine”, and my “Oh, Look at me Now” - without a hitch. And by the time we got to the third set, we were really in the swing o' things; the room was jam-packed and we had every man, woman and child in that place in a good ol’ fashioned singalong to a little tune we stole from Bugsy Malone.

Sure, a glass of whisky each helped no end… as did the lovely locals. They were just plain sweet to us, very appreciative. Hell, they even asked for our autographs, the cuties. But then I guess we oughta get used to that, huh?

So we’re feelin’ okay. Excited I might even say. Velma, Betty and I are just about ready to head on outta the big smoke, into the sticks and to march out onto that festival stage on Sunday night, hip flask in hand. Wish us luck, folks…

Let me confess immediately: Debbie Reynolds didn't mean a great deal to me beyond Singin' in the Rain, warbling "Tammy" and Being Princess Leia's Mother (and believe me, she gets plenty of comic mileage out of the Carrie Fisher connection). But I knew she had a fabulous Hollywood history, and having been smitten by old troupers Elaine Stritch and Barbara Cook in London, I wondered if she could match them. Half-sashaying, half-tittupping on to deliver her own abbreviated, adapted version of Sondheim's "I'm Still Here", she immediately provoked the comparison.