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.