The Sunday Preview: Theatre

Tamburlaine the Great (Swan, Stratford, 0789-295623, now previewing, opens 1 Sept). After Arturo Ui, Antony Sher takes on another of theatre's beastie boys, to whit Christopher Marlowe's Scourge of God. The crunching down of the play's two parts into one is in capable Hands (Terry), and it needs to be. Can legendary violence in the high style be edited down?

Dreams from a Summer House (Stephen Joseph, Scarborough, 0723- 370542, previews from Thurs, opens 26 Aug). Alan Ayckbourn's 45th full- length play. The master's judgement, if not his acid touch, seemed to be faltering with the over-extended and under- attended Revenger's Comedies, and on paper Dreams doesn't look to be offering any surprises. A comedy with music (tunes by John Pattinson), it inhabits familiar Ayckbourn territory - the paranoid fringes of the suburban garden party.