Peter Viney's Blog

The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer
Adapted by John Hartoch

Directed by Kirstie Davis (visiting professional)
Design by Alex Berry (visiting professional)

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
West Country Tour 2019

The Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne, Dorset
Wednesday 3rd July 2019 19.30

CAST:

Elias Adojutelegan Chaucer
Tian Chaudhry The Prioress
Denzel Baidoo The Friar
Dan Hall John Franklin
Kiera Lester Mistress Joanna Franklin
Chanel Waddock Captain
Nancy Hall Mistress Elizabeth Merchant
Sarah McCormack Mistress Alice (Wife of Bath)
Jake Simmance Oswald Reeve
Izzy Coward Margery Reeve
Seb Orozco Robin Miller
Nimshi Kongolo The Host
Olivia Edwards Cat – Host’s Wife
James Burman The Pardoner

Chaucer and his tales

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s West Country Tour is an event not to be missed. Final year students … in three months they will be professional.

There have been several theatrical versions of The Cantebury Tales. We’ve seen at least three, and it was one which Mickey O’Donaghue’s incredible New Vic Company did in the 1990s. Then there was Mike Poulton’s 2006 version for the RSC, and Robin Davies and Michael Boganadov in 1994, Phil Woods and Michael Bogdanov in the 1980s, and a 70s musical by Neville Coghill and Martin Starkie. This version is by John Hartoch.

A lively stage version is something kids should see. The year I did A-levels, The Clerk’s Tale was the choice. It’s easily the most boring of all the tales, designed by Chaucer to show what a dull and pious fellow the Clerk was, and it would put you off Chaucer for life. Fortunately, I later went on to meet an Australian lecturer who was passionate about Chaucer, read it brilliantly and started with The Miller’s Tale.

It started with Chaucer (Elias Adojutelegan) giving us the start of the prologue in full 1400 Chaucer language, leaving many, including me, thinking ‘How do I get out of here?’ but fortunately after a minute he laughed and broke into modern English. Elias Adojutelegan has excellent stand up audience rapport.

The Pilgrims

As an exercise in touring for final year students, this has to be designed for ensemble playing with a reasonably even role distribution. Doubling up for versatility is a bonus. It’s hard to find suitable plays, though A Midsummer Night’s Dream worked well last time. The cast all have assigned roles as pilgrims, plus there is Geoffrey Chaucer and the Host of the Tabard Inn, Southwark. Then as the pilgrims are chosen to tell a tale, everyone else stays to listen and watch in pilgrim character but come forward as needed to participate in acting out the tale. As Chaucer manipulates this, there is a great deal of freezing in position, all executed very well.

Gradually as we move into Part Two, the pilgrims are behaving like the characters in the Tales, so the Reeve’s wife fancies the Friar and nips off with him at the overnight stop, and the Friar and the Pardoner nearly come to blows. Chaucer explains the relationships, what a reeve was, or a friar or a pardoner’s reputation, or the Wife of Bath’s history- for her the pilgrimage is like a Mediterranean cruise, he could have added, a chance to pick up husband number six.

Musical numbers veer to folk / shanty with all singing unaccompanied except for a a smidgen of accordion once, a brush of guitar a few times.

The first half we found incoherent and confused. The problem is that the touring stage is designed for the smallest stage on the tour.  The play has been blocked to fit the stage, and it’s simply too crowded. With everyone watching “The Tale” it means there’s just too much going on around the central story, too many people. You can’t focus on the “Tale.” Lgihting can’t help, because the viewing pilgrims are inches away.

The Prioress- or is she The Nun’s Priest? Who knows?  (Tian Chaudhry)

Chanticleer (The Nun’s Priest Tale)  is not a good start to the tales AND the narrator is called The Prioress, though the Franklin did a good cockerel, and the Wife of Bath a rather sultry Fox. Equally confusing is The Sea Captain / Shipman’s tale.

The Miller’s Tale is usually the highlight of adaptations, but here it was a very weak link, and I thought too early for the best story. Nowhere near bawdy enough and the arses kissing mimed from two metres away is not funny enough. Other versions have an actual bare arse too, but perhaps that might be a surprise too far in smaller West Country venues on their extensive tour in venues that see more tribute bands than plays.

The Pardoner (James Burman)

On the plus side, they avoid The Clerk’s Tale of Patient Griselda.The Pardoner’s Tale, perhaps for the first time ever, eclipses The Miller’s Tale. Its the three robbers seeking “Death.” (Not as well as in the Nasreddin story, Appointment in Samara).

The second half focusses on just two Tales, the Wife of Bath’s Tale and the Merchant’s Tale and as a result is stronger and clearer than the first part. The Franklin and wife are keen to tell a tale, but are never ‘preferred.’

Gender blindness was the order of the day … deliberate cross playing. The sea captain is female in a swashbuckling role. The Merchant being female doesn’t matter though. All three robbers are women. Inexplicably, the Wife of Bath does a small part as a male knight with wife, though plenty of blokes are on standby. Well, it will prepare them well for work in the theatre, especially in London and subsidized theatre of the next few years,  before hopefully the tide turns and sanity prevails.

Lighting was excellent, with a violet tinge and lowering for all the freeze-frame moments, all done with precision timiong. Multi colour LEDs have changed the game.

Excellent playing, I can see why it was designed like it was, but the script construction to me is the weakness, combined with the drifting from prose to attempted rhyme. I thought the adaptation poor in both dialogue and construction. Intrinsically, so many of the tales / plays are about suspicion of infidelity that it’s repetitive. It’s not anywhere on a par with the previous adaptations we’ve seen … though the acting is full professional standard. However, it’s unfair to rate it next to an RSC production.