Theatre review: The One

Ian had just turned the conversation - I'll leave you to guess if there was a gleeful tone to his voice - to the early closure of Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical, when the house lights went down and "Music of the Night" started to play. The love song from Phantom recurs over the next 75 minutes as the backdrop to another unhealthy relationship in Vicky Jones' The One. University lecturer Harry (Rufus Wright) and his long-term girlfriend - originally his student - Jo (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) are staying up throughout the night, waiting for news of Jo's sister, who's gone into labour. Prompted by a late-night visitor, the couple confront each other and their relationship, revealing it to be a viciously antagonistic one that seems to thrive on them permanently goading each other into obnoxious behaviour, and with a sexual power play that's uncomfortable to watch.

Theatre review: Fleabag

Fleabag needs a job, but the interview gets off to a bad start when she accidentally flashes her bra at her prospective boss - the fact that he's just been done for sexual harassment doesn't make him any less on edge. Phoebe Waller-Bridge performs her self-penned monologue Fleabag which, framed by the disastrous job interview, takes us back over how the 26-year-old woman ended up quite so chaotic. Following her best friend's death, Fleabag struggles to keep open the guinea pig-themed café they ran together. Her on-off boyfriend also walks out on her, possibly for good this time, and her first reaction is to start playing the field again as soon as possible. Waller-Bridge's hilarious play is an hour's journey through the world of a woman who approaches life and sexuality in ways we stereotypically expect of men.

Theatre review: Mydidae

DryWrite is a company that commissions playwrights to produce work on very specific briefs, and there's nothing dry about their challenge to Jack Thorne, to set a play entirely in a bathroom. Named after a kind of short-lived fly, Mydidae takes place over a day in the life of a couple, Marian (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and David (Keir Charles.) It starts as a fairly light piece that looks at how comfortable the pair are together, their morning peeing, flossing and shaving all done in front of each other, sharing a lot of in-jokes that suggest a couple who've got to know each other really well. But a darker underside becomes apparent - the day ahead is one they're both dreading, and it's not just because of the important business pitch David has to make: This is also the anniversary of an event which Thorne makes the audience aware of with a nice degree of subtlety.