The Telegraph's Sam Leith says Tessa Jowell has conned the public. The Olympics would cost £2.37bn. Now it's £10bn. Ouch. Many characters in The Alchemist experience that sickening feeling. Ben Jonson's 1610 comedy about three con-artists is the prototype for all those stories about cons duping the credulous from The Sting and Usual Suspects to Ocean's Eleven. Listen to director Nicholas Hytner discuss The Alchemist with me. Or read the backstage account (Oberon, £10). Clive James says scams are sadistic.

This blog links more widely than the rest of the ashden directory to online articles about green issues and shifts in contemporary thought. Apart from the notable exceptions listed on this website here since 2000, the performing arts have been remarkably slow in picking up on the major story of our time. Science historian Naomi Oreskes says: 'There's a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture.'

With CGI, it's a doddle. When Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig opened in The Golden Compass in December 2007, the first in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, CGI solved the problem of daemons. And polar bears. But how do you put this stuff on stage? Director Nicholas Hytner let me follow this epic production over five months in 2003 as a 1400-page novel became six hours of drama. The Art of Darkness reviewed here and here. (Oberon, £12.99)

After His Dark Materials opened, there was a series of 'platform' talks on the stage at the National. Hytner, Pullman, adaptor Nicholas Wright, and leading cast members Anna Maxwell Martin (Lyra) and Dominic Cooper (Will) discussed the play with me. The most newsworthy conversation - reprinted word for word across two pages of the Daily Telegraph - was between Pullman and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. 'Platform' interviews edited by Lyn Haill. (Oberon, £7.99)

Stamp-step, stamp-step, ball-change ... Anything Goes pits the march of religious fundamentalism against the spirit of tap. No contest. Britain's top musicals director, Trevor Nunn (Les Mis, Cats, Porgy and Bess), allowed me into every day of rehearsals as he brought Cole Porter's show to life, from the first stamp-steps to the final joyous number. Last chapter online. (NT, £8)

You've written a play. The National Theatre wants to stage it. Is this a dream come true or the start of a nightmare? When John Caird agreed to direct Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, about an astrophysicist losing heart, he thought it would be instructive for a journalist to follow the whole process. The stellar cast included Diana Rigg, Simon Russell Beale and Denis Quilley. The only unknown was the play. I followed the highs and lows that Charlotte Jones experienced, from the tough questions thrown at her in week one to the elation of the first preview. Last chapter online. (NT, £8)

As Iran enriches uranium on an 'industrial scale' and Iranians blog anxiously about President Ahmadinejad's hawkish stance, the issue of nuclear proliferation competes with climate change for headlines. Michael Frayn's award-winning play deals with the birth of the nuclear bomb. A meeting in the middle of WW2 might have changed the course of history. In a 15,000 word intro, I sketch in 30s Germany, the astonishing advances in nuclear physics, Frayn's own career, and the way this play fits in with preoccupations central to his work. (Methuen, £7.99)

Intelligent Life is a new quarterly published by the Economist. I contribute pieces about the arts and green issues. My interview with Philip Pullman is here http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/697 (along with dozens of reader comments). My article about climate-change jokes is here http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/888. More on climate sceptics and lightbulb HERE