Canterbury Tales (musical)

Canterbury Tales
The Musical
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Music	John Hawkins Richard Hill
Lyrics	Nevill Coghill
Book	Martin Starkie Nevill Coghill
Basis	Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Productions	1968 West End

Canterbury Tales is a musical originally presented at the Oxford Playhouse in 1964, conceived and directed by Martin Starkie and written by Nevill Coghill and Martin Starkie. It was expanded into a full length musical and presented at the Phoenix Theatre, London on 21 March 1968 and ran for 2,080 performances. The music was written by Richard Hill and John Hawkins, with the lyrics by Nevill Coghill. Chaucer was played by James Ottaway. It was considered to be very bawdy but appealed to the audiences. The Lord Chamberlain's censorship of the theatre had just ended, so it did not experience any censorship. There were two versions of this musical, each making up about half the story, so that if you saw only one there was a lot you missed.

The musical took five tales from the Canterbury Tales and told them with song and humour. These were; The Miller's Tale; The Nun's Priest's Tale; The Steward's Tale; The Merchant's Tale; and The Wife of Bath's Tale. In addition, Chaucer's Prologue and Epilogue were spoken. The purpose behind these stories was that Harry Bailey, one of the main characters, declares that each pilgrim should tell a tale on the way to Canterbury so that the ride would be more enjoyable.

"The Miller's Tale" is about a man named Nicholas, who studied astrology and the art of love at Oxford. Nicolas boards with a wealthy man named John who has a very attractive eighteen-year-old wife named Alisoun. John is highly possessive and very jealous of anyone who even speaks to his wife. One day, Alisoun and Nicholas meet while the husband is away. Nicholas grabs Alisoun and asks her to sleep with him, at first she is reluctant, but after she realises how sweet he is she agrees. However, Alisoun is afraid that her husband John might find out even though Nicholas acts like nothing bad will come of the affair. Unfortunately for Nicholas, he isn't the only one that fancies Alisoun. A very merry man named Absolon also desires her and serenades her and buys her gifts every day. Although Absolon showers her with gifts, Alisouns heart really belongs to Nicholas. So Nicholas devises a plan to get the husband and Absolon away from Alisoun. He fools the old man into believing that there is going to be a flood. However, when the time comes the old man makes a fool of himself and the whole town is there to witness.

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