Having the classics adapted for you is all very well, but it does remove a lot of the hard work. Gareth Machin's digest of the Canterbury Tales takes us closer to Chaucer's original than most, however, as you have to use your feet. A couple of turns round the Williamson Park bandstand may not equate to a trek from Southwark to Canterbury, but it sure beats sitting in a theatre watching actors pretending to wear out their shoe leather. Or even watching it on telly.
The Canterbury Tales is a mammoth project that famously ran out of steam. Chaucer planned 120 stories, of which he actually wrote 23. For this production by the Dukes theatre company, Machin pares it down to six, which shouldn't tax anyone's stamina unduly. But it's a good pick of the highlights, from the Knight's grand oratory to the Wife of Bath's canny feminism and the Miller's smutty contribution to the first known Carry On script in English letters.
Purists be warned: the medievalism goes little further than the costumes. Ian Hastings's high-spirited production makes the tales feel like a prototype package tour, with Chaucer as the world's first holiday rep.
It's all good cleanish, accessible fun, though there's precious little poetry in the proceedings: these are modern paraphrases packed with topical references. But it gives the fine cast plenty of scope to work the crowd. When Daniel Crute's knight is charged with discovering what every woman desires in the Wife of Bath's Tale, he takes a microphone to conduct a straw poll of the audience. The consensus appears to be chocolate.
· Until August 7. Box office: 01524 598500.
