Written by Nick Revell
Co-directed by Gráinne Byrne and Katarzyna Deszcz

A boldly theatrical and contemporary reworking of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from THE CANTERBURY TALES, LOVE AND OTHER FAIRY TALES is as interested in exposing the inner working of Chaucer’s imagination as it is in the tale themselves. What happens, when a figment of your imagination speaks back to you? And what secrets are you letting slip about your own darker side? Riding to Canterbury, Chaucer and his five (reconstructed) pilgrims are each in turn drawn in to take a role in the story. Through an inventive, multi-layered structure of stories interwoven with stories, the clowning pilgrims metamorphose into characters in Alison’s tale. Alison reveals her turbulent life of multiple marriages and the pilgrims reveal their own prejudices and passions. LOVE AND OTHER FAIRY TALES, like the Wife of Bath’s Tale itself, has a bittersweet surface but a fervently romantic core.

Author’s Notes
As writer Nick Revell reveals, “ If you’re familiar with the original Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue, you’ll swiftly notice that LOVE AND OTHER FAIRY TALES is a loose adaptation.

Changes are inevitable when you’re adapting from one medium to another; sometimes these changes are forced upon you - for instance, in the Canterbury Tales, there are about thirty pilgrims, depending on how you read the text. Sometimes the changes are made for more subjective reasons: in this case, we felt that anything that would require footnotes for the average modern audience member had to go. However interesting it might be if you’re familiar with the details, we are seeking first and foremost to tell a story and entertain, rather than deliver an academic treatise. Of course, taking a text and changing it for your own purposes was standard procedure for medieval writers, so it’s quite appropriate to do it here! “

Director's Notes
For directors Gráinne Byrne and Katarzyna Deszcz ‘”We have taken an imaginative leap as to why Chaucer created the characters in THE CANTERBURY TALES especially Alison – The Wife of Bath.

Chaucer presents us with his characters and assumes he has the measure of them. Alison is confident and unapologetic about her life experience and openly declares her five husbands, her sexual needs and struggle for control. At first he judges and dismisses Alison, however when she answers him back, he is forced to encounter unfamiliar emotions. The Wife of Bath goads Chaucer and the other pilgrims with her tale. Her journey through life with many husbands has brought her to a kind of personal enlightenment and understanding of love that she tries to share metaphorically through her fairy tale. Whilst this tale charts the knight’s moral journey, Chaucer’s attitude towards Alison is transformed as he hears her life history.

We have experimented with weaving together Alison’s story with the fairy tale and imagining the impact on the other pilgrims. We were fascinated with the many levels of story and creating different theatrical conventions. At first, elements of the story are clearly contrasted but then we wanted to explore where these stories cross and affect each other. What is so powerful about the fairy tale for us is that it still speaks about experiencing freedom by giving it to other people.