It all started in 2009 in the National Portrait Gallery. I’d had a meeting nearby so popped in to get a cuppa and stare at the beautiful rooftop view of London from their top-floor café, but a picture caught my eye. It was part of an exhibition of Victorian Women Explorers, a photograph of a woman with a rather severe face. The label said something like: "Gertrude Bell – Mountaineer, Explorer, Diplomat and Spy.

At a point in history where – yet again – a few misplaced words from English politicians could wreak havoc with Irish lives, this is a welcome revival of Ian Rickson’s stunning production which first played here to rapturous reviews last year.

Tom Morris’s production of Cyrano starts with a procession of nuns, some of them bearded, chanting verses from the medieval mystic Hildegarde of Bingen. In this original and lively version of Edmond Rostand’s late 19^th century classic, Morris has played fast and loose with the original text, translated here and brought up to date by the poet and theatre maker Peter Oswald.

Clean Break, the theatre company that specialises in working with women in the criminal justice system, is doing a lot of celebrating. It's the 40th anniversary of this unique female organisation and already this year they have put on a variety of shows, from Chloe Moss's Sweatbox to the devised piece Inside Bitch.

David Greig’s reimagining of Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel has brought a masterpiece of intellectual science fiction back to its philosophical core.

Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian writer who has explored issues of Muslim and British identity in various formats. Her work includes poetry, fiction, anthologies and performances, as well as plays. And she's pretty prolific. Since her Dry Ice was staged at the Bush in 2011, she has written some 18 other plays, of various lengths.

True stories, even in a fictional form, have the power to grip you by the throat, furiously shake your body and then give you a parting kick in the arse. This is certainly true of stand-up comedian Richard Gadd's Baby Reindeer, a blistering monologue which was first seen in Edinburgh this summer, and is now at the Bush Theatre in West London.

If ambition were all, Groan Ups would get an A*. Marking the first of a very welcome three-show residency at the Vaudeville Theatre, this latest from the cheerfully unstoppable Mischief Theatre tethers the japery we have come to expect from the team behind The Play That Goes Wrong  – mishaps aplenty, verbal hi-jinks  – with a newfound interest in the human psyche.

This ingenious short work deftly investigates themes of love and identity with a breezy assurance that marks first time playwright, Ruby Thomas, out as a daring and exciting new voice.

“Every now and then the country goes a little wrong”: so goes one of the many lyrics from the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical Assassins that makes this 1990 Off Broadway musical (subsequently chosen to open Sam Mendes’ Donmar Warehouse in 1992) a piece of theatre very much for our time. Some shows need textual tweaking when they come around again but not this one.