Cut-down Chaucer is a ribald romp

THE CANTERBURY TALES, Lowry Quays

IF any other company had milled a two-night adaptation of Chaucer’s epic road-novel into one night running to three hours, you would probably decide to wash your hair that night. Even if you were bald…

But when the company is Northern Broadsides, keen to get back in everyone’s good books after a mediocre “Medea” just a few weeks ago, it’s got to be worth a look.

And for all its length, Mike Poulton’s adaptation of his own adaptation — originally written for the Royal Shakespeare company in 2005 — is entertaining, inventive, ribald, sexy and only just outstays its welcome. It had good flatulence jokes too.

The setting (by Lis Evans) is a makeshift stage of pallets, bits of wooden structure and several ladders standing in for trees, windmill sails, bar counters and more. It’s an all-purpose idea that suits the loose nature of an evening that begins as pilgrims gather and a lone figure (Chaucer — Andy Cryer) joins the group to record what goes on.

A large cast roams across this blank canvas, whether speaking or playing multiple instruments in arrangements, by director and composer Conrad Nelson, that run from a jazzy funeral procession to multi-part church choir.

What the evening proves above all is that despite the discoveries, inventions, philosophy and travels of the past 600 years, everyone still loves a good sex or wind joke. Chaucer doesn’t disappoint, and neither does this play.

Among them are the infamous Miller’s Tale of mistaken kissing (achieved with one of a number of charming puppets used across the tales), the Reeve’s Tale of a dishonest miller, his wife, daughter and two students, the Merchant’s Tale of a 60-year-old man and his 20-year-old wife and her lover and a pear tree, and the feisty Wife of Bath and her catalogue of marriages. All are related with great wit and comic invention.

The one tragic note is that of the Clerk’s story of Grisilde (Rosie Dixon), taken from poverty by the Marquis, then tested by having her two children taken away, then herself replaced by a younger model, only for things to turn out right in the end.

The story is dramatically told and played by all concerned and the overall effect of the evening is funny, entertaining and well worth leaving the shampoo on the shelf for.