Classic Cuts - Great plays in an hour! The Canterbury Tales and Richard III

Directed by Robert Hastie

A company of RADA trained actors presents two famous plays abridged to just one hour each. Enjoy these expert performances as a double bill to get the full experience of these colourful, reinvigorated classic works. Both are also available as a single hour-long show.

On Friday 07 September, you can also join us for a free “Custard Cream Tea” before the matinee performance! Free tea, coffee and the nation’s favourite biscuit, the Custard Cream, will be available in the bar an hour before the performance starts to all ticket holders.

The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer
This adaptation © Mike Poulton 2005
First presented by the RSC in 2005 at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Copyright agent: Alan Brodie Representation Ltd www.alanbrodie.com

We join our six Pilgrims at the Tabard Inn in Southwark - the first staging post in their journey to Canterbury; as they go along they regale each other and us with music, songs and stories - tales that are exciting, bawdy, silly, romantic, adventurous and magical by turns; to while away the tedium of their journey, they are having a storytelling competition and we, their audience, are to be the final judges. Join the Knight, the Miller, the Prioress, the Cook, the Wife of Bath and Chaucer himself as we hear three timeless stories: a bawdy romp, a dark morality tale and a noble romance of Knights and their Ladies.


Richard III
By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Robert Hastie
The Wars of the Roses have ended with victory for the House of York, and Edward IV has been crowned king. But not everyone in the royal family is happy. As the crowds cheer for Edward’s coronation, the King’s youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, takes us into his confidence. So far his ruthlessness and cunning have been deployed to help his brother to the throne - including the murder of the Lancastrian King Henry VI and his son - but all that is about to change. Richard wants the crown for himself, and will stop at nothing to get it. With its warring factions, dark humour, Princes in the Tower and Shakespeare’s greatest villain, this is an epic tale of ambition, treachery and blood.