Zeb Soanes is celebrating Masters of Wit on October 11 at St Peter’s Belsize Park [Charlie Carter]

THESE days the Everyman in Hampstead is a cinema, but in the 1920s it was an experimental theatre. And 100 years ago it housed the landmark premiere of a play by Noel Coward, The Vortex, which took place there because most West End theatre managements thought it too risqué – dealing as it did (in an admittedly veiled way) with homosexuality.

The year 1924 wasn’t a sympathetic time for minority rights. But that said, The Vortex proved a big success, establishing Coward’s reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. And to celebrate the anniversary of this piece of theatre history emerging out of NW3, a words and music concert – Masters of Wit – at St Peters Belsize Park, Oct 11, features Coward’s work alongside songs by composers from Cole Porter to Schubert.

The common denominator, I’m told, is wit – to be provided in performance by pianist Louis Mander, tenor William Diggle, and the voice that once soothed us all into sleep with the shipping forecast on radio, Zeb Soanes.

It’s some while since Soanes left the BBC to join Classic FM, where he now soothes us into sleep with relaxing Mozart. And besides that, he’s become a musical activist, promoting a project for a statue to Benjamin Britten that will stand by the composer’s childhood home on the seafront at Lowestoft.

“Next month, on what would have been Britten’s birthday, we plan to announce details for an unveiling in 2025”, Soanes tells me. “But we’re still collecting money at the moment”. Any spare cash gratefully received at the St Peter’s show. stpeterbelsizepark.org.uk

• Talking of Britten, his spine-chilling operatic ghost story The Turn of the Screw has a new production at the Coliseum, Oct 11-31. As English National Opera is in difficult circumstances these days, it will be a modest sort of staging. But as the Screw is effectively a chamber-scale piece that achieves miracles with a handful of singers and instrumentalists, it doesn’t actually need much: just a sense of spooked disturbance.

Ailish Tynan sings the central role of the Governess whose young charges may or may not be possessed by the dead. And for the record, it’s a role that was written back in 1954 for the soprano Jennifer Vyvyan, who lived and died in Hampstead (there’s a plaque in Fitzjohn’s Avenue) and has a centenary of her own coming up next year. eno.org

• Yet another anniversary – it’s easy to get tired of them I know – is the bicentenary of the birth of Bruckner. There was plenty of him in the Proms this year. And there’s still more at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oct 13, when the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment play his 5th Symphony under conductor Adam Fischer.

Done on the OAE’s period instruments, it’s tempting to say the performance will be as Bruckner himself would have heard it. Except he never did: he died before the score was played in full. southbankcentre.co.uk

• Unless you come from the North, brass bands tend to be a rather rarified musical interest, but they’re a big deal for the Salvation Army – which explains why the Army’s Regent Hall in Oxford Street is holding a festival of brass, with concerts across Oct 11-12. Everything is free entry, though with a requested donation to homeless charities. Details: regenthall.net