There was no dilemma is foregoing the tap-dancing of the federal treasurer’s budget speech for Vanguard, which proves to be a fitting name for The Australian Ballet’s latest, as it spearheads new movements in dance and new directions for the company.

When I say new, the first of the three works presented — George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments — harks back to 1946, but still glistens with a fresh modernity. This, despite humble origins: its premiere was at the Central High School of Needle Trades, of New York City, on November 20 of that year, with music commissioned from Paul Hindemith. (Hindemith had, in fact, written a score of the same name six years earlier, for string orchestra and piano.)

The blackest of comedies, Friedrich Durrenmatt’s Dance of Death is a complex and absurdist piece of literature. Adapted from August Strindberg’s 1900 play about a marriage gone psychotically wrong, this bleakly hilarious play is currently being hosted by the Malthouse Theatre, under the skillful direction of Matthew Lutton.

The first thing that the audience member will be struck by is the intriguing mise en scene. Tony Award-nominated designer Dale Ferguson has conceived of something truly remarkable with this set, constructing it entirely in a glass box with the audience members arranged on each side. All three actors — Jacek Koman, Belinda McClory and David Paterson — remain on stage the entire time, even while they are not involved in the current scene. This is strategic: it adds to the claustrophobic feel of the script and the overall entrapment the characters suffer from.

Sometimes things go awry. Sometimes, in the thick of an exceptionally frantic week of theatregoing and writing about theatregoing, a reviewer doesn’t prove as thoroughgoing as he might. Ought. But anyone can make mistakes. Right? And so it was that, before scooting off to southern Thailand for a much needed, long overdue holiday, right in the thick of things, amid the fog of war fought valiantly with the beast of literary burden, I forgot to write up Forget Me Not. I know. Forgot. The irony is almost too chuckle-worthy; which can only but add to the extremity and profanity of my embarrassment.

Of course, there’s nothing much chuckle-worthy about Belvoir’s soon-to-end, current, Upstairs co-production (with The Liverpool Everyman), written by Tom Holloway and dedicated to The Child Migrants Trust, directed by Anthea Williams and featuring Mandy McElhinney, Colin Moody, Eileen O’Brien and Oscar Redding.

Let me say immediately that this is a lovely, intensely moving, intelligent piece of theatre. It was first staged in 2009 by the Royal Shakespeare Company and later in 2012 at the World Shakespeare Conference in Stratford. Its writer, or perhaps I should say creator, Ben Power, is apparently a wunderkind, skilled at presenting “rewrites” for modern audiences. Here he has rearranged and put Shakespeare’s words into the minds and mouths of an elderly Romeo and Juliet, as they dream and remember a shared past of love, companionship and mutual dependence.

The set is spare, but absolutely suggestive. It appears to be either a retirement village or a small unit with its neat outdoor patio, with real flowers growing neatly in well-tended mulch. This is no mere idle touch, however; Romeo is a gentle gardener who turns the soil and plants small flowers for his Juliet, and then, with a red rose between his teeth, becomes a Latin lover dancing for her delight. Flloyd Kennedy’s laugh was that of a young girl, not a giggle, not a guffaw, but a genuinely loving embrace of her lover’s performance.

Our screens were all hijacked by real horror show ultra-violence: creeches and flames in the nochy, red flowing krovvy and keeshkas all out, malchicks and devotchkas on moloko, crasting pretty polly, droogs waving britvas, waving pooshkas at the millicents then loveted, off to sodding staja to have their yarbles shived. Not two years since the arson, the looting, the violent clashes of London’s riots, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange ought to be as relevant as ever.

Ought. Ought but ain’t with this latest all-male incarnation from the UK’s Action to the Word. Disappointing, to say the least, because there are some elements of genuine brilliance in this production. However, confused as to whether it wanted to be a hyper-camp and over-stylised West Side Story or an underground contemporary anti-Hamlet, this production suffered from a lack of identity, and with it, the lack of something pretty indispensable to the story; that is, punch.

The idea of Frankenstein or, rather, the creature he created by electrifying a corpse,  has been with us for so long that it sometimes comes as a surprise to learn that he’s only been in existence for 200, appearing in a ghost novel by Mary Shelley, the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, in 1813.

We think of the monster, here called simply The Creature, as a mythic beast, often in a cartoon version like Lurch, with nuts and bolts sticking out of his neck, staggering around like a drunkard and acting irrationally and brutally.  But the real Creature is a more subtle creation than that, and Shelley’s story is more than just a Gothic horror. There’s a serious moral message here, about the dangers of trying to play God, and about the potentially destructive results that can occur when a creation becomes more powerful than its creator.

Boys in hoodies fight under street lights, sirens sound, drum and bass reverberates and the stage is lit by the glow of phone booths and television screens. A world away, men and women dance together harmoniously against a backdrop of rock formations, mist, rain, and sand.

The brilliance of Blak, the latest production by indigenous dance company Bangarra, is the way it explores both these worlds, showing them to be intertwined.

Bell really knows Bill. Yes, the company’s called Bell Shakespeare, but what’s in a name? It might proclaim the overwhelming direction of its programming, but it can’t communicate the depth of affinity it has with the bard. Or so I fancy, when I imagine the character of the man who wrote plays which have informed and infiltrated the English language more than the Bible. Anyone who’s seen a Bell production will know quality is to be expected, but with Henry 4, the company has exceeded itself.

If there was ever a production designed to cure theatre novices of their aversion (to Shakespeare in particular, probably developed at high school), it’s John Bell’s deft adaptation of ye olde Bill’s history plays, Henry IV, parts one and two. Stephen Curtis’ design is probably the first thing that opens one’s eyes a little wider. A shipping container serves as an entrance and exit, as well as emulating a bloke’s shed. There, on the door, hangs an assortment of swords, daggers and, amusingly, a chainsaw. This wit extends to costume, with Bell, as a kind of ocker Falstaff, looking like the homeless man you’ve tried to avoid on the bus. (You know you have.)

Victorian writer Melissa Bubnic has plenty to show for a short career. The VCE high achiever has gone on to win several prestigious writing prizes from Arts Victoria, La Mama, Ian Potter Cultural Trust and The Children’s Literature Board of Australia. Her most recent project, Beached, won the 2010 Patrick White Award. It’s not hard to see why.

Arty is the world’s fattest teenager. At 18 years old, he tips the scales at a whopping 400kg, confined to the couch in his bedroom where he is cared for by his mother JoJo, a chronic feeder and Freudian nightmare. In order to qualify for a life-saving gastric bypass operation, Arty needs to shed 50kg, and while doing so, submit to documentation on the humiliating reality TV series Shocking Fat Stories. He also has a youth worker to contend with, Louise, whose no-nonsense approach to life conflicts with not only his mother, but also Arty’s paralysing sense of self worth.

There’s never really been a great Australian sitcom, but maybe that’s because Joanna Murray-Smith’s never written one. True Minds, which opened at Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre last night, is television gold. Problem is, it’s two hours long, it’s happening on a stage, and there’s no way to change the channel.

Our heroine, Daisy (Nikki Shiels), is fresh from an appearance plugging her new book on The Today Show. Daisy’s mother Tracey (Genevieve Morris), a dippy new-ager in purple tie-dye, is on hand to quote from the book — “the smartest, most confident man in the world crumbles in the face of maternal opposition” — helpfully telegraphing the evening’s hijinks. Daisy’s taken up the He’s Just Not That Into You mantle with her he-won’t-marry-you-if-his-mother-doesn’t-like-you bestseller, and her book hangs there, stinking up the place like some Elizabeth Gilbert version of Chekhov’s gun. Daisy Lucille Balls her way around her apartment hiding rubbish in the oven, books under the couch and panties in the freezer in a panic; she’s about to meet her fiancé’s mother for the first time.