THE Royal Shakespeare Company's summer festival season gets under way today with a preview of The Tamer Tamed at the Swan Theatre in Stratford.

The play is by John Fletcher and is the playwright's riposte to his contemporary William Shakespeare's earlier work The Taming of the Shrew, which is also being performed as part of the new season, with previews from April 1.

Both plays star Jasper Britton, son of actor Tony and brother of daytime TV presenter Fern, as Petruchio and Alexander Gilbreath, whose TV credits include playing serial killer Pat Kitson in The Bill, as Kate in Taming and Maria in Tamed.

It is believed that the two full plays have not been paired since Shakespeare's old company, the King's Men, performed them at court in a single day in November, 1633.

Gregory Doran, whose Jacobethan series of plays at The Swan was the highlight of the last RSC season, winning an Olivier award for special achievement, is directing both plays.

Set designs for both productions are by Stephen Brimson Lewis, whose Tuscan backdrop for last year's RSC production of Much Ado About Nothing was a big hit with audiences.

The third play in the early part of the season, which is new artistic director Michael Boyd's first, is As You Like It, directed by Gregory Thompson and starring Nina Sosanya, who played Jenny in Channel 4 series Teachers.

The play, which is to be set against the social and political events of the mid-1800s, previews at the Swan Theatre from March 13.

Plays being performed in the rest of the summer festival season include Measure for Measure, Richard III and Titus Andronicus at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Brand, starring Ralph Fiennes, and Cymebline at the Swan. The ticket hotline is 0870 609 1110.