Live music in intimate Georgian setting is the highlight of a theatrical triple bill

I do not endorse three consecutive nights of London theatre when you haven't unpacked your bags from your last trip, your next one is less than a week away and you're trying to get your head back into your job. Frankly, I'm getting too old for that kind of schedule.

Sometimes, however, no matter how you try to juggle your diary things get crazy. My father was visiting from the USA. We'd had tickets for Book of Mormon for months. It was the only week we could get to The Wipers Times before it closed. And Dad was really keen to go to a concert at Handel's house. So we packed it all in. While my energy levels were flagging by the weekend, my delight in London's cultural riches was riding high.

Jane Austen's Songbook at the Handel & Hendrix House Museum
I'd long been aware that the great composer George Frederick Handel's home was a tourist attraction in Mayfair, one given added musical interest by the irony that Jimmy Hendrix lived in an attic flat at the property next door in the '60s. (The greatest irony these days is that this part of London could have ever have provided starving artist lodgings for the as-yet-undiscovered Hendrix.) I'd never visited, however, and had no idea that the museum that now combines these two properties offers a programme of intimate concerts in the room where Handel composed his music.

I was enraptured. I've never heard classical music in a space so small, nor ... at a distance of three feet ... been so close to the musicians. The audience comprised just two rows around two sides of the room: 24 people. This is, of course, the way much of the classical repertoire was designed to be performed. That was the idea behind the concert's topic, drawing from Jane Austen's actual notebooks to put together a programme of music that would have been typical of an evening in the early 19th century, when friends would have gathered in private homes to listen to each other play and sing.

Flautist Yu-Wei Hu and guitarist Johan Löfving gave us recognisable Paganini, Schubert and Gluck, while introducing us to names like Lemoyne, Oswald and Giuliani. Though Hu's biography was more impressive, I thought that Löfving ... who's just graduated from the Royal College of Music ... gave a more confident and mistake-free performance. I loved his solo guitar version of Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith. If these musicians weren't yet at the top of their game, and the programme only included eight relatively short pieces, it was reflected in the bargain ticket price of just £12. There are few things you can do in London for that price, much less in such a unique environment. Their future calendar of events is one to watch.

The Wipers Times
When I read the glowing reviews of this comedy in the London papers I knew that the Bencards had to see it. Based on the true story of a group of soldiers who dealt with life in WWI's trenches by creating a satirical newspaper, I was confident that my husband would love the military angle. Using humour to cope is an essential element of the English character; one that reaches its zenith in the military.

I'm a huge fan of one of the play's two writers, Ian Hislop, who is the editor of Private Eye Magazine and regular panelist on Have I Got News for You. Sure enough, the play is very, very funny. The humour moves at a cracking pace, and it seems the only times you're not laughing are during the poignant bits when the plot confronts the tragic reality of the horrors the men were trying to survive. It's a balance that reminded me strikingly of the best bits of Blackadder's fourth season.

The humour is all the more impressive when you realise that much of it was drawn direct from original copies of The Wipers Times itself. (So named after the way the Brits, famously, simplified pronunciation of Ypres.) This is a story that deserves to be more broadly known. I'm delighted Hislop and his writing partner Nick Newman decided on a stage version. They'd originally written a TV screenplay in 2013, which we somehow missed in the avalanche of WWI material hitting our screens in the run-up to the centenary of the start of war. The play has now closed, but you can buy a copy of the film from the BBC.

The Book of Mormon
Another, very different, type of humour is on offer a short walk away at the Prince of Wales theatre, where this laugh-out-loud hit is now in its fifth year. While still a regular sell-out, it's now fairly easy to get good tickets if you book two or three months in advance. I loved it as much as I did the first time (reviewed here). Despite language that would have sent my mother into a dead faint and comic elements that can only be described as puerile (it comes from the creators of South Park, after all), it's actually a rather sweet and uplifting story. The good guys triumph, the performances sparkle and the musical numbers are big budget extravaganzas with toe-tapping tunes.

Everything you want from a West End musical, really ... with wicked comedy thrown in. Which is, no doubt, why my musical-averse husband consented to attend, and actually enjoyed himself. My father had the double delight of liking it, and knowing he was seeing something that would never make it to his extremely conservative corner of Mid-Missouri. Which is a shame, really. Because a lot of people on the American far right could benefit from a Spooky Mormon Hell Dream.

And if you don't smile instantly when you read that, you really need to book a ticket to get in on the joke.