By Harry Mottram: One of Geoffrey Chaucer’s stories from the Canterbury Tales is set to be played out by chickens, farm animals and a fox – in an exert from the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Chauntecleer and Pertelotte tells theAesop Fable style story of a cockerel, a fox and the rooster’s wife in which the moral rests on the dangers of flattery and reckless decisions.
Adapted by Dougie Blaxland from the 14th century story related by pilgrims on the way to Canterbury Live Wire Theatre’s Tim Dewberry and Abigail Unwin-Smith play a multitude of roles in the anthropomorphic story related originally by the Nun’s Priest.
The play has been performed across the country and is currently on tour having previouslybeen nominated for the Scotsman Fringe First Award and the Popcorn New Writing Award at the Edinburgh Festival. The publicity says: “Delivered in language combining elements of Chaucer with the ‘nonsensical gobbledy-gook’ pioneered by comedy greatsStanley Unwin and Kenneth Williams,Chauntecleer & Pertlotte has been described as ‘comedic and literary gold’. With just two actors playing all 24 of the diverse human and animal characters that populate Blaxland’s outlandish ‘farmy-warmy’ world Chauntecleer and Pertlotte is a ribbald romp of a play performed at ‘breakneck speed’.”
The play runs from Tuesday to Wednesday, 13-14 October, 2026, in Bristol at the Alma Tavern Theatre at 8pm nightly, and continues on its run at the Cotswold Playhouse on October 17th, Bath’s Rondo Theatre on October 28-20, having previously appeared at the Phoenix Arts Centre on September 24 and the Oxford Playhouse’s Burton Taylor Studio on September 28–29, 2026.
Tickets for the Rondo at https://www.ticketsource.com/rondotheatre/chauntecleer-and-pertelotte/e-grrrpp
