The Five Best Plays

Good (Donmar Warehouse, London)

Starring Charles Dance, CP Taylor's play (right) about accommodations with conscience is revived in a sensitive production by Michael Grandage. To 22 May

Making Noise Quietly (Whitehall Theatre, London)

Very welcome West End run for Deborah Bruce's lovely poetic revival of Robert Holman's sensitive, elliptical triptych about the emotional effects of war. To 22 May

The Dispute (Lyric Hammersmith, London)

Neil Bartlett's devilishly good production of Marivaux's 1740 tragi-comedy relocates the fascinating, heartless experiment about sex and sexuality to the fringes of a 1930s costume ball. To 22 May

Volpone (Swan Theatre, Stratford)

Comedies don't come any funnier or more astringent than Ben Jonson's brilliant dissection of avaricious, over-reaching egotism. To 9 Oct

Tales from Ovid (Swan Theatre, Stratford)

Ted Hughes's brilliant adaptation of the Metamorphoses gets the Tim Supple treatment, vividly demonstrating the inherent theatricality of these myths. To 7 Oct