Skip to main content

Review of Canterbury Tales, performed by University Of Northampton BA Actors at St Peter's Church, Northampton

Much like An Evil Gathering of Infidels failed to live up to its same year devised buddy Orientation, Canterbury Tales has much to do so over Accused this year and sadly like Infidels is doesn't succeed, and in fact sadly fails much more so. As ever, little to do with the performances, which for the best part are top notch, but more because of the consistency of the material. Just like the distance Chaucer's pilgrims travel during their story-telling contest, here lies an immense gulf between the interest, and frankly boredom of some of the segments occurring here.

It probably doesn't help that I have a nonchalant regard for Chaucer, having certainly studied him at school, I frankly, quickly forgot him (although I definitely had a flashback to The Miller's Tale and the red-hot coulter) and have never really encountered him since.

The Miller's Tale ironically provides the best entertainment from Canterbury Tales, although you get to hear it twice (and repeats are a theme in this, more later), both times are wonderfully presented. We have ultracool, a quite posh at times, and confidently strutting telling from Anya Gallagher, and then the jack the lad, extremely sweary telling from Jake Wyatt. Both are hugely entertaining segments, and even if you have little knowledge of Chaucer, chances are, once the bottom is sticking out the window, recollections will begin.

The Miller's Tale is told twice, and this tells a little about one of the issues of this version of Canterbury Tales. Many of the tales are inexplicably told more than once, one of which we have four versions. While this allows them to be told in perhaps clever and different ways at times, it doesn't really help the boredom level, which sadly does rear its head during this show.

The most thrilling moments are when we have been presented with something truly different. The Pardoner's Tale is a true highlight, presented in mime by Gemma Leigh, Jason Pile and Oliver Franks (and did I really see you struggle to remove a non-existent knife from your back pocket? Brilliant little snippet of an idea if you did). The Franklin's Tale was also a highlight of the show with a gorgeously sung version by Bryony Ditchburn. Elsewhere, in supporting roles, as much as their own tales they had to tell, both Alexandra Pienaru and Ceara Coveney once again shone in this production.

The visually most impressive tale though was The Monk's Tale, presenting the full company in a riot of eye-gouging loveliness. This was executed brilliantly, and the red ribbons an impressive representation of the whole event.

When we arrived, we had been presented on our seats with both the usual programme and on this occasion a map of the church. On this were the tellers that were to come, and this perhaps at this time suggested an effective pilgrimage of us the audience as well, around the church. We moved twice as it turned out, and perhaps, in the end, this was a disappointment, as both the feeling that this might happen, and the eventual slight lack of activity was a further disappointment.

The staging was dynamic and there is no doubt that Canterbury Tales had some inspiring use of the church space. Unfortunately, this did on perhaps too many occasions see the audience either awkwardly twisting around in the pews, or just facing forward listening to what was happening behind them. This culminated also in an epic disaster of an end show as well, as full cast behind us sang the final song, we applauded, either twisting around, or again facing forward, backs to the cast, and then the applause slowly died out as the cast made their way to the front, and we found ourselves beginning to applaud again after an awkward pause. All rather putting a damp squib on the final moment sadly.

Canterbury Tales did have much to like, it was well performed and there were undoubtedly some entertaining sequences, sadly there was an awful lot of fluff in between, which left a lot to be desired.

Performance viewed: Thursday 8 February 2018 (matinee) at St Peter's Church, Northampton
Canterbury Tales runs until Saturday 10 February 2018

Twitter feed for the University actors is @BA_Actors


Popular posts from this blog

Review of Hacktivists by Ben Ockrent performed by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

The National Theatres Connections series of plays had been one of my highlights of my trips to R&D during 2014. Their short and snappy single act style kept them all interesting and never overstaying their welcome. So I was more than ready for my first encounter with one of this years Connections plays ahead of the main week of performances at R&D later in the year. Hacktivists is written by Ben Ockrent, whose slightly wacky but socially relevant play Breeders I had seen at St James Theatre last year. Hacktivists is less surreal, but does have a fair selection of what some people would call odd. Myself of the other hand would very much be home with them. So we are presented with thirteen nerdy "friends" who meet to hack, very much in what is termed the white hat variety. This being for good, as we join them they appear to have done very little more than hacked and created some LED light device. Crashing in to spoil the party however comes Beth (Emma-Ann Cranston)...

Review of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical at Milton Keynes Theatre

This tour of Bat Out of Hell - The Musical has become sadly a double-tribute as it tours throughout the UK into 2023 and the love of its creator Jim Steinman, and the man who made his work world-famous, Meat Loaf, both lost in the last year, runs through the cast in this impressive version of the show. The storyline of Bat Out of Hell takes the Peter Pan idea and warps it into a dystopian world of a group of youth known as The Lost trapped forever at 18 years of age. The centre of this group is Strat, who, after a chance encounter, becomes under the spell of Raven. Of course, into this mix must come a megalomaniac, as all dystopian worlds really need. This is the father of Raven, Falco, who, with his wife Sloane, battle The Lost, Raven’s relationship with Strat, and indeed their own very bizarre relationship, to the backdrop of Steinman’s music. Bat Out of Hell doesn’t start particularly well, be it the performance or a show issue, for the first twenty minutes there is a lack of clarit...

Review of It's A Wonderful Life by Masque Theatre at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

Remarkably I only saw the classic film It's A Wonderful Life last Christmas, this was thanks to spotting it lurking on my subscription of Netflix. A glorious heartwarming film perfect for Christmas? That must be why I was a blubbering mess at the end of it then. There was hope that in public, The Masque Theatre's performance of the radio version of the story didn't leave me in the same situation. As it happened it did a little as that final scene in the Bailey household played out again, but it didn't matter as there were members of the cast in the same broken state as many of us audience members. Left to right: Jo Molyneux, John Myhill, Lisa Wright, Michael Street, Lisa Shepherd and Jof Davies This was the first radio play that I had seen performed and on the evidence of this, I sure would like to see some more. While not having the drama of standard plays in their creation of moment and places, they do have a rather striking drive towards character creation. The ...