Neither of Dominic Cooke's promenade productions of these late Shakespearean romances fascinates from start to finish. Yet each has the power to move, and combined they offer a prize insight into the great man's later work.

For these are both the plays of an ageing mind, concerned above all with the passage of time. It's a concern that always hangs over these two productions: Mike Britton's set of lovely, rusting iron a constant reminder of its beautifying, corrosive effects.

In both plays, a king loses his wife and daughter only to rediscover-them through coincidence and magic. In The Winter's Tale, baseless sexual jealousy drives Leontes (Anton Lesser) to expose his newborn daughter and shame his spotless wife Hermione (Kate Fleetwood) into the grave. The first act is a gradually wearying outpouring of rhetoric, as Hermione's innocence is monotonously protested by all and sundry. Lesser's tortured jealousy at the start is compelling, but thereon he is a jittery tyrant of little complexity, his motivations forgotten.

Yet the wild narrative surprises at the first half 's close are handled masterfully. The least delphic Delphic oracle in literature unleashes a thunderous volley of dramatic punches amongst which Lesser's rain-swept realisation of his folly is awe-inspiring. Up close, proming, you can smell the damp.

The 16-year hiatus before the second half and the move from winter to restoring spring, sees a change of period, from austere Forties to late Sixties. The return to natural order, epitomised in the insipid, flower-power love of prince Florizel and foundling Perdita, is disturbed by a ton of unfunny comedy, but the play regathers pace and finds its way to an enchanting final reunion.

Pace is not a problem for Pericles. The suffering of Lucian Msamati's redoubtable yet baff led Pericles is sketched in through a series of encounters

with a lively supporting cast. The narrator Gower skips us over seas and across years in seconds. African and Mediterraneanmusic thrum. Dancing and set-pieces fill the Swan's gutted auditorium.

It's sprawling and lurid where The Winter's Tale feels controlled and resonant. Yet at the close, when Kate Fleetwood, again excellent as the lost wife, steps across once more to embrace a husband, the similarities, once more we find ourselves lost in a gentle, almost pagan vision of a world where there is healing magic in women and nature, and, in Time, a neverfading chance of redemption.
Until 6 Jan (0870 609 1110).