The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Theatre

Antigone (Old Vic, London)

Sophocles' great tragedy gets a superb staging from Declan Donnellan and a performance of enormous complexity from Jonathan Hyde. To 15 Jan

Marathon (Gate Theatre, London)

Mick Gordon's production of Edoardo Erba's play about two young men in training for the New York marathon resonates powerfully. To 11 Dec

Spend, Spend, Spend (Piccadilly Theatre, London) This utterly irresistible new musical (right) captures the tough, impudent survivor spirit of Viv Nicholson, the woman who won and blew a Pools fortune. To 29 Jan

Macbeth (Swan Theatre, Stratford)

Greg Doran's is the best production of this notoriously difficult tragedy since the classic Trevor Nunn version. Harriet Walter is marvellously complex and achingly sad as Lady Macbeth. To 1 Jan

Larkin with Women (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough)

Ben Brown's well-crafted, funny-sad play about the love life of the poet Philip Larkin has telling points to make about the ironies of selfishness, creative solitude and loneliness. To 4 Dec