Pocket Guide to Musicals, By James Inverne

How widely do you draw the circle labelled "musicals"? Should Carmen come inside, or even The Magic Flute? James Inverne doesn't aim for quite so shattering a note, but this smart and witty survey of his eclectic "Top 100" finds room for Porgy and Bess alongside The Rocky Horror Show, Candide with Hairspray, The Lion King and Gilbert & Sullivan, both Cabaret and its parent The Threepenny Opera, Billy Elliot: the musical but also Jerry Springer: the opera.

Plus, of course, the My Fair Ladys, Evitas and South Pacifics, all expertly sketched and placed. Knowing the genre's buffs, I suspect that many will nip straight to Inverne's "ten terrible musicals", featuring such doomed delights as Lionel Bart's Twang!, Mike Reid's Oscar Wilde and the Rod Stewart-Ben Elton collaboration Tonight's the Night. It most certainly was not.