Rihanna and James Corden lend their voices to this dispiriting animation

What is it with the Smurfs? You'll be hard-pushed to find anyone who admits to being a "genuine fan" of the "blue-skinned, mushroom-dwelling cartoony creatures", said John Nugent in Empire. And many of us regard them as perhaps "the worst thing to come out of Belgium since King Leopold II". Yet Smurf films and TV shows continue to be made and now, "by unpopular demand", they're back with "another crack at the live-action/animated hybrid" used in 2011's "The Smurfs". As in previous films, a pop star has been recruited to voice Smurfette. Rihanna, who also co-produced the feature and lent its soundtrack a couple of numbers, gives it a "good go", but few of the celebrity voices "make much of an impression", and the "cheap and jarring" visuals make it a dispiriting experience to watch, too. As for the plot, it is nonsense – and derivative nonsense to boot.

The storyline is scarcely worth even trying to follow, but it is something to do with four sentient magical books that keep everything balanced, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. To escape evil wizards, one of these tomes goes into hiding in Smurf Village. There, she hears a Smurf named "No Name Smurf" (James Corden) singing a self-pitying ditty about having no personality, and lends him some of her magic. But then Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is kidnapped, forcing the Smurfs into an "interdimensional adventure". For reasons that are unclear, they visit various places in the real world, including Paris and a German Autobahn, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. I could go on, but this film has "all the charm and personality of a dented traffic cone", and a screenplay that may be the worst I've encountered in 20 years as a critic. So I will simply say: please avoid.

This is a 'spirited, sentimental and spectacular' revival of the original 2008 production

Damian Cruden's superb production of "The Railway Children" – featuring a real steam train – premiered in York in 2008, then thrilled audiences in London and Toronto too, said Patrick Kidd in The Times. This joyous revival, which forms part of Bradford's year as UK City of Culture, takes the novelty a step further, by including the actual railway used in the much-loved 1970 film adaptation of E. Nesbit's book. Audiences board a steam train at Keighley, for a half-hour trip along the lovingly preserved Keighley & Worth Valley line. This takes them through Oakworth, which served as the film's main location, and on to Oxenhope, where the "immersive" drama plays out in a reconfigured engine shed. The spectacular train ride conjures up a "nostalgic and benevolent mood", but it is "only the beginning of a magical performance" centred on the 100-tonne locomotive, built in 1887, that was used in the film.

"This is a glorious piece of storytelling, spirited, sentimental and spectacular," said Ron Simpson on What's on Stage. Mike Kenny's adaptation is "masterly", and Cruden's deployment of his large cast, often as passengers and anonymous bystanders, is "magnificent". The actors playing the children – Roberta, Peter and Phyllis – are individually excellent and "operate perfectly as a trio", but everyone, from housemaids up, makes their mark. And the whole thing is beautifully stitched together, from Joanna Scotcher's set and costume designs to Christopher Madin's evocative music. It's a glorious production and a "wholesome triumph", said The Times in an editorial. "Toot! Toot!"

The design is "stupendous" and the drama "deftly executed", said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. But I found the storytelling a bit tame initially, and the emotional temperature somewhat tepid. In what could have been an interesting twist, this production makes the siblings Anglo-Indian – but sadly this change feels "cosmetic", not really thought through. Thankfully, after the interval, the drama gets "back on track", with more humour and narrative verve. By the close, with Father's emotional return, the production "has become irresistible".

Oxenhope Station, West Yorkshire. Until 7 September

Superstar of the early 1960s pop scene

Connie Francis, who has died aged 87, had a string of hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Stupid Cupid", "Lipstick on Your Collar", "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "Mama". From 1958 to 1963, she was the third-highest-selling artist in the US, behind only Elvis Presley and The Beatles. She pioneered the fanzine and pop merchandise, from branded T-shirts to the Connie Francis doll. But her career tailed off in the mid-1960s, said The Telegraph, and her life "was blighted by a catalogue of personal tragedies including four divorces, two miscarriages, rape" and "mental breakdown".

Born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero in 1937 in Newark, New Jersey to an Italian-American family, Francis displayed prodigious musical talent from an early age, learning to play the accordion at the age of three. Encouraged by her domineering, music-loving father, she soon appeared in variety shows, and signed a recording contract with MGM in 1955. At the age of 17, she was about to elope with Bobby Darin, a fellow singer, when her father chased him off with a shotgun. Francis' first 10 singles for MGM all flopped. She was on the point of giving up music in favour of studying medicine, said The Guardian, when her 11th single, "Who's Sorry Now?" – one of her father's favourite songs, which she personally disliked – sold a million copies in the US and topped the British charts. Nearly 30 hit songs on both sides of the Atlantic followed, along with starring roles in musical comedies. Francis was one of the so-called "white bread" school of late-1950s singers, who offered a "safe" alternative to the rock'n'rollers, said The Times. But there was nothing bland about her distinctive "sobbing" voice, heard to striking effect on both "tearful ballads" and "jauntier, up-tempo numbers". However, like many artists of her era, she was left sounding outdated by the arrival of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and the like. By the late-1960s, "she was reduced to singing in nightclubs and patriotically entertaining the troops in Vietnam".

In 1974, after a concert in New York, Francis was raped at knifepoint at her hotel. The event triggered years of depression and agoraphobia, and she was eventually committed to a mental hospital by her father. In 1981, her brother, an attorney who testified against the Mafia, was shot dead by a hitman, compounding her agony. None of Francis' marriages brought her much happiness. "I chose every record I made with more care than I picked my husbands," she said. After a series of failed comebacks, she began to perform again from the late-1980s; in 2004, she headlined in Las Vegas. This year, to her delight, her 1962 song "Pretty Little Baby" went viral on TikTok.