FIVE BEST PLAYS

Enron (Royal Court, London)
Rupert Goold’s wonderful production of Lucy Prebble’s second play. Tim Pigott-Smith draws a fine portrait of Ken Lay, the avuncular Enron owner and golf-lover, while Samuel West plays the geeky-into-viciously sleek Enron president, Jeffrey Skilling. (020-7565 5000) to 31 Oct

It Felt Empty When the Heart Went at First But It Is Alright Now (Arcola Theatre, London)
Lucy Kirkwood’s wonderful new piece, developed in workshops with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system, stars Hara Yannas as a sex-trafficked Croatian waiting in her desolate Dalston room for the punter who (she hopes) will be her last. (020-7503 1646) to 31 Oct

All My Sons (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)
The theatre’s recently installed artistic director, David Thacker, has returned to the same in-the-round concept he favoured for his Old Vic production of Arthur Miller’s drama. George Irving and Margot Leicester star in this nightmare of love, greed, death and culpability. (01204 520661) to 24 Oct

Inherit the Wind (Old Vic, London)
Kevin Spacey and David Troughton star in Trevor Nunn’s cracking production of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s exploration of the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925. (0844 871 7628) to 20 Dec

Mother Courage and Her Children (NT: Olivier, London)
Fiona Shaw delivers a phenomenal performance as Brecht’s “hyena of the battlefield”. Her dynamism is matched by the extraordinary vitality of Deborah Warner’s modern-dress production. (020-7452 3000) to 8 Dec