The Canterbury Tales (2011)
About the Production
It is the 14th Century, and in the bustling courtyard of The Tabard Inn, Southwark, men and women from all walks of life gather for a pilgrimage to the cathedral at Canterbury. Friars and priests, pardoners and summoners, millers and good wives. In order to entertain these good folk, the host of the inn asks that each traveller tells a story as they make their way across Kent. And so they, and we, begin our journey.
In this joyous adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic work by Richard Lloyd, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon present six of the best and most colourful tales, creating an exuberant and and often hilarious portrait of ordinary folk preoccupied with petty jealousies, mundane squabbles and simple pleasures. Bold and often bawdy, these tales bring home vividly just how little the English people have really changed over the last six hundred years!
The stories presented are The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale and The Reeves Tale, neatly wrapped in an engaging background as host and landlord Harry Bailey attempts to maintain order amongst his boisterous and often wayward charges.
Chaucer (1343 – 1400) is widely considered to be the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, and was the first poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, diplomat and courtier. His many works include ‘The Book of the Duchess’, ‘The House of Fame’, ‘The Legend of Good Women’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, but it is ‘The Canterbury Tales’, in which he uses the tales to paint an ironic and critical picture of English society, for which he will always be remembered.
The Cast
Behind the Scenes
Image Gallery
The Reviews
Super, smashing great!
‘Super, smashing, great’. Not quite Chaucerian words but some of the modern touches added by adapter and director Richard Lloyd, and voiced by Alan, a north country student, about a night of passion in the Reeve’s Tale – words certainly applicable to the play.
Renowned for their outdoor productions, this was set in the grounds of the Coulsdon Manor Hotel with good sound and lighting and kind weather on the night I went.
Seven tales from the original 28 were delivered, with some cast members playing many different parts. The wardrobe team deserve an accolade for their ingenuity and research as do those in charge of make up – for the Fox and Chanticleer in particular. The two horses looked and sounded excellent.
The main characters, who each took it in turn to entertain with a story en route to Canterbury, all interacted well with each other’s tales, creating the illusion of the journey.
The tales incorporated elegant girl dancers, two of whom later became greedy rogues, complete with beards and moustaches in the Pardoner’s Tale.
Sean Young as the Knight in the Wife of Bath’s Tale included audience members in his vital quest to find out what it is that women most desire and it was he again, as Fly Nicholas in the Miller’s Tale who, alongside Hannah Montgomery as Alison, had to do a spot of mooning.
Interpretations were commendable, realistic and often funny, but the most comic was the Luke Argles as Chanticleer the Cockerel in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
Cock-a-hoop with his bevy of admiring clucking hens, he fell for the wily fox’s cock and bull story, leaving his love, Pertelote (Lucy-Ann Martin) bereft.
It was a joy to watch this production of tales from our English heritage.
Theo Spring for The Croydon Advertiser
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