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Theatre listings > The Canterbury Tales. - Tour. Writer. - Geoffrey Chaucer. Adaptor - Mike Poulton. Directors - Gregory Doran, Rebecca Gatward, Jonathan Munby. Designer - Michael Vale. Lighting - Wayne Dowdeswell. Music - Adrian Lee. Sound - Jeremy Dunn. Movement - Michael Ashcroft. Fights - Terry King. Music Director - Sylvia Hallett. Associate Costume Designer - Emma Williams. Company - Royal Shakespeare Company Company Website. Cast - here . 2006 Tour Dates and Times - Goes to Dumfries and Barrhead. Details here .. Run Time - Part I - 3 hours; Part II - 3 hours, each including 20 minute interval. Reviewer - Timothy Ramsden. N.B. The RSC doesn't recommend its new show for under-12s. I'd recommend it for just about everyone over that age. A-road theatrical highway. Before knuckling down to the complete works of Shakespeare, to be performed at Stratford-upon-Avon over the next year, the RSC has spent winter with England's most famous classic novelist, and the founding father of English (as opposed to Scots) poetry. But while Great Expectations won't be leaving Stratford, the company's two-part adaptation of Chaucer's late 14th-century masterpiece is, aptly, taking to the road for extensive national and international travels, calling in at Dumfries and Barrhead. By no means the first go at staging Chaucer's series of contrasting travellers' tales, it's almost certainly the best. Few British companies could contemplate two full-length shows' worth of material, allowing the inclusion of less familiar material alongside the Knight's nobility, the Miller's obscenity and the Nun's Priest's anthropomorphic satire. But size, while it matters here, is far from everything. There's a theatrical wit and variety to the story-telling that enlivens Mike Poulton's cunning script as it weaves medievalisms and suddenly familiar modern turns of phrase into a seamless whole which never grows tiresomely antique or wearingly anachronistic. Theatrical styles vary to suit each piece of material. Part I, for example, ends by contrasting the horror-story starkness of the Prioress's anti-semitic blood libel narrative (told with smooth-voiced medieval Christian conviction by Paola Dionisotti) with the perky puppet-show illustrating the Nun's Priest in his tale of Chantecleer and Pertalote, a cock-and-hen story mirroring bourgeois human folly. The Prioress's story of Jews murdering an innocent Christian boy (medieval flavoured racist propaganda) is followed by a disavowal of her prejudice. But the hardest story for modern sensibilities to take to could also be the Clerk's Tale of Patient Griselda. Placed, in Part II, after the interval when concentration is strong, it tells of a poor woman married by a ruler who then subjects her to psychological cruelties, killing their children and taking another wife. All ends happily - at least, it turns out to have been a way of proving her qualities to his people. But it will leave modern viewers wondering whether patience is all the story cracks it up to be. Strangely, the notorious Miller's Tale is not too successful. This often happens, since its anatomical crudeness is difficult to simulate convincingly on stage. But it leads neatly into the Reeve's Tale, an anti-miller bed-swapping tale of lust and misunderstanding that's hardly outdone till the pacy Merchant's Tale. This tale of an old man outwitted by a young wife is likely to leave audiences unable to pass a vegetable stall again without a knowing smile. Where emotion runs deeper, as in The Franklin's Tale, with its use of shadowplay, the production gives full value to the characters and their feelings; Michael Hadley is excellent as a Franklin clearly more reflective than many of his travelling companions. Meanwhile, relationships between the pilgrims are developed. Tedious tale-tellers are given short-shrift, cut off in their prime or by an interval. Quarrels and alliances develop (there's some splendidly camp byplay along the way), while Mark Hadfield's ever-anonymous Chaucer ("I'm just Geoff") movingly suggests the civil servant absorbing so much of human nature into his poetry. Big, bold, brave, and matching physical exhilaration with intricate character detail, acted by an ace company, this is an A-road theatrical highway. One that goes further even than Chaucer ever trod. In place of the incomplete original, the journey culminates as the pilgrims reach Canterbury Cathedral, their varied humanity subsumed into a final candlelit chorale. By then, everyone's rejoicing. © Tim Ramsden February 2006 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast - The Squire - Nick Barber The Wife of Bath - Claire Benedict The Clerk - Daon Broni The Pardoner - Dylan Charles The Prioress - Paola Dionisotti Alison/Constance/May - Lisa Ellis The Reeve/The Physician - Christopher Godwin Chaucer - Mark Hadfield The Man of Law/The Franklin - Michael Hadley Emilee/Merchant's Wife/Dorigen - Anna Hewson Nicholas/Aurelius - Edward Hughes Absalon/John/Damyan/Crow - Michael Jibson The Monk/The Manciple - Michael Matus The Host/The Nun's Priest - Barry McCarthy King Aella/Walter/Arveragus - Chu Omambala The Shipman - Ian Pirie The Miller/The Summoner - Joshua Richards The Knight/The Merchant - Christopher Saul Hippolyta/Maylin/Virginia/Grisilde - Katherine Tozer The Cook/The Friar - Darren Tunstall All other parts played by members of the company Musicians - Sylvia Hallett, Jan Hendrickse, James Jones. 2006 Tour Details of Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Canterbury Tales . Tour begins 14 - 18 Feb at Ellesmere Port, Epic Leisure Centre 0870 950 9292. 21 - 25 Feb at Dumfries The Ice Bowl 01387 251300. 28 Feb - 4 March at Telford, Adams’ Grammar School 01952 61 9020. 7 - 11 March at Littleport, Littleport Sport and Leisure Centre 01353 616 991. 14 - 18 March at Doncaster, The Dome 01302 370 999. 21 - 25 March at Sunderland, The Seaburn Centre 0191 514 1235. 28 March - 1 April at Barrhead Sports Centre 0141 577 4970. 15 Apri l- 6 May at Washington DC, USA, The Kennedy Centre. 16 - 20 May at Melton Mowbray, King Edward VII Community Sports Centre 01664 851 019. 23 - 27 May at Canterbury, Kingsmead Leisure Centre 01227 787 787. 30 May - 3 June at Portsmouth, Mountbatten Leisure Centre 023 92 690 011. 6 - 10 JuneSt Austell, Polkyth Leisure Centre 01872 262 466. Tour ends. Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. Theatre listings >
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