DEPARTING Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble directs his last Shakespeare play for the company during the new season of the Bard's late plays.

Noble, who leaves the RSC early next year, is directing Pericles, one of the three late plays being performed in rep at Royal Shakespeare Theatre between July and November.

Noble has cut and reshaped the work, which is rarely staged, possibly because of the dense text.

"We have also added some songs and other interludes so it really is full of spectacle - action, music, dancing and fights," he said.

The other two plays being performed during the season are The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

Broadway star Michael Cumpsty has been cast as Leontes in Matthew Warchus' production of The Winter's Tale. The part is currently being played by Douglas Hodge at The Roundhouse in London.

Cumpsty, whose is currently starring in 42nd Street on Broadway, has appeared in LA Law on television and in the movie The Ice Storm.

The production is set in 1940s and 1950s America, a setting that Warchus believes is recent enough to feel contemporary but distant enough to feel archetypal.

He said he has previously rehearsed Shakespearean plays in an American accent in a bid to stop actors becoming "snow-blinded" by the words.

"Whenever I've done this exercise the play sounds better. I think this is because Shakespeare was meant to be performed in an accent much closer to American than standard English," he said.

The final play in the season is The Tempest, directed by Michael Boyd and starring Stratford-based actor Malcolm Storry as Prospero.

Storry, an RSC associate actor who last performed with the company in 1999, said: "Prospero is a part I'd always wanted to play, though it is quite a challenge. Shakespeare's later plays are very complex in terms of text, so there's a lot of work to do unravelling the language and meaning, and making it accessible."

The Winter's Tale previews from July 31 and ends on November 2 , Pericles previews from August 12 and ends on November 2, The Tempest previews from September 7 and ends on November 1.