We spoke to the creatives working on BAWDS' 'Canterbury Tales' to find out more about the show!
Q: What inspired you to bring Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to the ADC?
Nick Warburton: "In part it was the tales themselves, and the way they’re told. They are vigorous, full of life and variety. As one of our pilgrims says, anachronistically borrowing the old News of the World tag-line, “All human life is here!”
"I was originally invited to adapt some of the stories for The Archers on BBC Radio 4. They were to be presented in the Brookfield barn by the good folk of Ambridge under the disciplined direction of Lynda Snell. This was for Christmas of 2018. It was, of course, a piece for radio. Now I’ve decided to adapt that radio version for the stage. So this is really an adaptation of an adaptation. Bawds have done this before, in 2017, when we staged Sebastian Baczkiewicz’s radio version of The Count of Monte Cristo here at the ADC."
Q: Which stories will you be telling?
NW: "We have put together a selection that I think reflects the wide range of the original. Some are broad knock-about, some are romantic, some, as our pilgrims point out, “have a worthy point they wish to make”. And many of them have a fascinating combination of humour and seriousness. The Knight, the Miller, the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Friar and the Franklin all step up, in that order, to tell their stories."
Geoffrey Chaucer: "If I may interject here? That point about humour and seriousness? You can see it in the Knight’s Tale, when the two friends Palamon and Arcite help each other into their armour, just before they engage in a fight to the death. Each is prepared to kill his best friend. It’s a strange scene – touching but oddly funny at one and the same time."
Q: How faithful to the original is this version?
NW: "I hope it’s faithful to the spirit of the original. This version is written in modern English, a mix of prose and unrhymed verse."
GC: "Mine was written in Middle English, the way people spoke in my day – lively and down to earth. It connected with my audience. How faithful? Well, I’ve got used to people taking the stories themselves and mucking about with them. Shakespeare and Fletcher took the Knight’s Tale and came up with The Two Noble Kinsmen. Stage, radio, film and television – they’ve all had a go. But, in a way, that’s the point of stories: they’re heard in the moment, and then they’re retold. They get handed on."
Canterbury Tales
Tuesday 09 - Saturday 13 July 2024
ADC Theatre
Click here to book your tickets!