Some musical theatre is still on song

In a post on this blog a few weeks ago, Dan Rebellato drew our attention to the great god McTheatre: gargantuan musicals that take an ephemeral art form and package it into gleaming pieces of soulless repetition. I'd go one step further and say many theatres aren't even delivering that level of entertainment. When you see a major show in a West End venue with what looks like its touring set, or watch a third-choice "name" trying their best with a score that is clearly beyond them, you can't but feel for people who go heart in hand (and hand in wallet) to see such poor work. McDonald's at least maintains basic standards; some producers have no such worries.

But musical theatre isn't quite bust. All over London, off-West End venues are showing that the musical can be a vibrant, alert, challenging and invigorating theatrical medium. One such is Rajni Shah's Glorious. This musical, commissioned by the Spill festival (18-24 April), will see Shah collaborate with a company drawn from local areas visited on tour, making each performance genuinely different. Written with Piaf composers (and two thirds of Superthriller) Ben and Max Ringham, Shah will be working as a performance artist within a traditional musical structure – an experiment that should widen her audience base beyond obvious musical fans. I'm going on word of mouth here, but it sounds like a welcome development in an art form whose most recent innovator is Andrew Lloyd Webber.

And there's plenty in a more traditional vein if that's what floats your boat. Islington's King's Head recently rebranded itself as London's Little Opera House following the Cock Tavern and Opera Up Close's runaway hit La Bohème, and recently showed a version of Madame Butterfly, wittily updated to present-day Bangkok. In July, Regent's Park Open Air theatre is bringing us Gershwin's sumptuous Crazy for You from the team behind its 2010 hits Into the Woods and the multi-award winning Hello, Dolly!. Here, you can get full-blown razzle dazzle for as little as £15 (with even Open Air theatre's top tickets nearly a third cheaper than the equivalent for a piece of McTheatre).

And of course there's the Union theatre in Southwark. Sasha Regan's space gives the Menier Chocolate Factory some stiff competition. Specialising in witty, fresh takes on musical classics, it punches above its weight. Regan's own company does a mean line in an all-male Gilbert and Sullivan; particular jewels have been their sell-out 2009 Pirates of Penzance and last year's critically acclaimed Iolanthe. In such a small space there's no need for mics (you can almost see the performers' tonsils), while the intimacy demands quality turns from performers who have nowhere to hide. Meanwhile Woody Sez, the new bluegrass musical about the life of Woody Guthrie, is churning "big West End biopics such as Jersey Boys into a heap of dust". Guthrie's ability to speak for the disposed, poor and downtrodden has never felt more vital; he may have been singing about the Depression, but if the shoe fits ... In any case, it's a deft and inspirational piece of social commentary.

There must be hundreds more examples like this – I'd love to hear some more – so let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a lot more to London musicals than big-budget, unoriginal tosh; to find it you just have to cast your net a little wider.