TWO contrasting plays - the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor and the political thriller Coriolanus - form the basis of the winter season at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre in Stratford.

The plays will be performed in repertory by a ensemble of 20 actors from October to January before embarking on a national mobile theatre tour, visiting leisure centres and schools across the country.

They will also form part of the RSC's residency at the University of Michigan in the US next Spring, alongside the company's new adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, who is setting the play in the middle class world of late 1940s England.

Playwright and director David Farr directs Coriolanus, Shakespeare's most political play, which stars Greg Hicks as Caius Martius. Richard Cordery plays Sir John Falstaff in Merry Wives.

The Merry Wives of Windsor previews from October 23 and Coriolanus previews from November 14.

Tickets are available on the RSC hotline on 0870 609 1110.