The Canterbury Tales:

a work-in-progress by in situ:

The Performers:

Speakers: Julie Kendall

Mark Sparrow
Chloe Copping
James Tuten
Mark Dalgarno
Mila Ginsburskaya
Martin Barrass

Movers: Maggie Carr

& others

Sounders: Tim Penton

Steve Adams
& others

Translators: Mags Clark

Boris Mayger
Brandon High
Julia Monument
& others

directed by: Richard Spaul

The Performance:

The Canterbury Tales is going to be performed for the general public in July, 2005. This work-in-
progress is the result of the second term’s work, and is by no means a finished product, but it’s very
useful for us to be able to perform to a small audience at this early stage and show the ideas and
techniques we’ve developed so far.

The Tales:

The Canterbury Tales were written around 1380. They are mostly folk tales, collected and written
down by Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘the father of English Literature.’

Chaucer meets up with a group of pilgrims, of many different professions and trades. They decide to
travel together to the shrine of St Thomas a Beckett in Canterbury. To make the long journey less
tedious, it is agreed that they will each tell a tale along the way.

The Tales are written in Middle English, which is largely but not entirely intelligible to a modern
English speaker. The texts you’re going to hear this evening are extracts from various different tales.
Some of it will be translated and interpreted for you, while for some of it you will have to fend for
yourselves.

The performance lasts approximately 50 minutes. There is no interval.

Please switch off all mobile phones while the performance is in progress.
Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the building.

The performers in this piece have all done in situ:’s Learn to Act courses.
These are open to all regardless of previous experience. If you’d like to know more about them, you
can:
call us on: 01223 211451;
email us on: info@insitutheatre.co.uk
or write to us at: 23, Wycliffe Rd, Cambridge, CB1 3JD.