Victoria Yeates in Wormholes, Omnibus Theatre. Photo: R Greig

There's a bitter irony when the Woman (Victoria Yeates) talks about the world being a better place in the opening scene of Wormholes at the Omnibus Theatre. She lists the almost complete eradication of the Guinea Worm as part of the evidence.

But the irony only becomes truly apparent as her story unfolds. The Guinea Worm, which lives and slowly grows inside its human host for a long time before it painfully emerges, is a metaphor for the coercive relationship she ends up in.

We first see the Woman in a psychiatric hospital, talking about her fellow patients and recounting her story from the fun first date and the slow, insidious infiltration of control over every aspect of her life.

In the introduction to the play text, writer Emily Jupp says it was important that the Woman represented an 'everywoman' to demonstrate that these experiences aren't restricted to a type.

The Woman in the play has a strong group of friends, is bubbly, enjoys life, has a good job and, unlike some of her friends, is not particularly looking for a relationship.

Covered in a blue rubbery material, the stage has an institutional feel. There is nothing else, it is just Victoria Yates and the space. She also plays 'Him', the Woman's mother and her best friend Jess.

While you see everything from the Woman's perspective, the presence of both mother and friend demonstrates how the outward appearance of a relationship can be so deceptive. It raises important questions: Would you spot the signs if it happened to your friend? What would you do if you did? What could you do?

Knives and Forks is part of the Riverside Studios Bitesize Festival and tells the story of female friendship in challenging circumstances.

Iris (Ianthe Bathurst) and Thalia (Thea Mayeux) met at university and now share a flat. They laugh, reminisce, and bicker in a relationship firmly cemented by the unique love great friends have.

But their friendship is tested when one of them gets ill.

Iris and Thalia are also represented on stage by their 'psyches' played by India Walton and Chien-Hui Yen, respectively, who dress identically to their counterparts.

They don't say anything but are a constant presence. They dance alone, in sequence and together, sometimes mimicking the speaking actors sometimes not.

The psyches also draw and write on the white paper backdrop to the stage. There is also a chalkboard where they scribble dates representing the story's non-linear timeline.

We see the impact on Iris and Thalia's friendship and on each of the friends from the illness and secrets that surround it. There is love, fear and anger, mistakes and regrets of things done and not done.

It is powerful stuff, but it could be more powerful if it was stripped back.

It's been a bit of a build-up to seeing Alma Mater at the Almeida Theatre. Twice performances we booked were cancelled, and tickets had to be rearranged.

So it was a relief to finally sit in the theatre watching it on a third attempt.

There has been a cast change; Justine Mitchell has taken over the role of Jo from Lia Williams, who had to pull out due to ill health.

With so little rehearsal time, Justine Mitchell still had her script in hand when I saw it, but her performance was such that I barely noticed. She plays an ex-journalist, feminist campaigner and now master of an esteemed college steeped in tradition and history.

When fresher Paige (Liv Hill) confides in student Nikki (Phoebe Campbell) that she was sexually assaulted, Nikki decides to take up the cause and turns to Jo.

But when Jo doesn't give Nikki the answers she wants, battle lines are drawn.

Kendall Feaver's play is knotty; there are no simple answers or straightforward characters.

Natalie Simpson as Marianne and James Corrigan as Stefan. Photo: Marc Brenner

It's curious that the play description on the Hampstead Theatre website for Visit From An Unknown Woman focuses on the male character, Stefan, played by James Corrigan, while the story firmly revolves around the mysterious Marianne (Natalie Simpson).

Based on a short story by Stefan Zweig and adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton, the 1930s Vienna-set play opens with Stefan arriving at his sparse apartment with a woman he's just picked up at a nightclub.

Or at least he thinks he just picked her up. Marianne, it seems, is more familiar with Stefan than he is with her. The clue is in the younger version of Marianne (Jessie Gattward), who haunts the edges of the stage.

The source short story is a letter Marianne writes to Stefan, a successful novelist and her former neighbour.

In the play, she has the majority of the dialogue, which means that Marianne becomes the main conduit through which we learn about Stefan and how her life is linked to his. 

A childhood crush on him has developed into an obsession in adult life. She's been a keen observer/stalker of him ever since, to the point where she understands him probably better than he understands himself.

Part of Riverside Studios Bitesize Festival, Fuckboy is a play about gender dysphoria that packs a lot into its 50 minutes.

Written and performed by Freddie Haberfellner, it explores how it feels to navigate a disconnect between one's sense of self and assigned gender through four interweaving timelines in the life of Frankie.

There's a drink-fuelled night out at a club, a tube journey from Aldgate to Richmond carrying a pair of scissors, a fantasy scenario involving Andrew Garfield and therapy sessions.

It has an increasingly frantic pace, flicking between timelines with a blink of a lighting change.

Tube stations tick down, the desire to use the scissors hung ominously within reach above the stage grows, questions become increasingly probing, and a need to have fun while getting increasingly drunk.

Time spent in the fantasy with Andrew Garfield is an amusing place of calm and contentment.

Yet there are constant questions about self, how Frankie feels, their experiences and treatment by others. Where do they fit in when they don't feel at home in their own body, and what does that mean about their place in the world?

REVIEW: George Sand (Léa des Garets), a successful French novelist, has writer's block. It's 1839, and she's both lauded by the press for her work and pilloried for her lifestyle choices. She likes to wear men's suits and has many lovers.

Strapped for cash, she's asked to write a play, so she creates a story about a woman raised as a man called Gabriel by her Grandfather in an attempt to avoid an inheritance going to a distant male relative.

Léa des Garet's play is inspired by the real George Sand, a French writer who sold more books than her male contemporaries, Victor Hugo and Honoré Balzac. She also lived a life that challenged the prescribed norms of French society.

George, the play, has parallel narratives: George, under pressure, writing the play with the help of her actress lover Marie (Iniki Mariano) and Gabriel's story, learning the truth about her upbringing and how she subsequently wants to live her life.

They weave together seamlessly. Léa des Garets also plays Gabriel, and Iniki Mariano takes on the role of Gabriel's male cousin.

Both reflect the prejudices of society towards gender and identity and the hypocrisy at play, particularly when it comes to money. George supports her husband financially, yet she isn't afforded the same rights he has as a man.

A backlash from her agent about Gabriel's ending exposes these prejudices further, and George has to decide whether to compromise what she wants the play to say or consign her work to a draw.