FIVE BEST PLAYS

Any Given Day (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh)
Linda McLean's new drama is actually two plays, a diptych in which the relationship between them doesn't become apparent until very near the end, when we can see the full arc of these regretful, terrified but somehow still hopeful characters as they sink into the depths of brutal despair. Kate Dickie from 'Red Road' stars. (0131 228 1404) to 19 Jun

Women Beware Women (NT: Olivier, London)
Marianne Elliott’s magnificent and disturbing revival of Thomas Middleton’s filthy 1621 Jacobean tragedy benefits from updating the Italian Renaissance to a period mishmash of New Look couture and punk primitivism. Harriet Walter excels as Livia. (020 7452 3000) to 4 Jul

Town (Royal & Derngate, Northampton)
With Alaska and The Empire sell-out successes at the Royal Court, D C Moore is building a reputation as one of our finest young playwrights. In his new play, the local boy considers the idea of a home town. (01604 624 811) to 3 Jul

Hair (Gielgud Theatre, London)
A joyous production of the mother of all rock musicals. It's a collection of protest clich�s, love-in songs and hippie high fives ser among the Greenwich Village "tribe", in which Gavin Creel' Claude dreams he doesn't burn his draft card and instead goes to war in Vietnam. (020 7907 7071) to 8 Jan

All My Sons (Apollo Shaftesbury, London)
Howard Davies's emotionally searching, expertly acted revival of Arthur Miller’s great drama revisits and revamps the approach taken by his award-laden version at the National Theatre a decade ago. David Suchet is on magnificent form as Joe Keller, the man who, under pressure of wartime production, knowingly sold defective cylinder heads to the US Air Force, thus sending 21 young pilots crashing to their deaths. (020 7907 7071) to 11 Sept /span>