Canterbury Tales

Canterbury Tales is a British musical, with the music written by Richard Hill [1] and John Hawkins, and the lyrics by Nevill Coghill [2].

The original text

It was originally presented at the Oxford Playhouse in 1964, conceived and directed by Martin Starkie [3] 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. (Wikipedia [4])

The musical took five tales from Geoffrey Chaucer's 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.

Performance history in South Africa

1970: Staged by the JODS in the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, directed by Daniel Thorndike, with Phillip Boucher (Host), Rigby Foster (Knight), Ian Hamilton (Squire), Joey van Rooyen (Prioress), Sheila Ferguson (Nun), Hugh Rouse (Priest), David Chrichton (Cook), Ian Kemm (Friar), Marjorie Gordon (Wife of Bath), Kerry Jordan (Miller), George Korelin (Steward), Billy Boyle (Clerk of Oxford), Gabriel Bayman (Merchant), Louis Ife (Chaucer) and others. Musical direction by Thomas Erskine and choreography by Geoffrey Sutherland.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_Tales_%28musical%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hill_%28musician%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevill_Coghill

JODS theatre programme, 1970.

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