Zadie Smith’s “inspired” reworking of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale is a “gloriously staged” triumph, said Susannah Clapp in The Observer.
For this, her debut play, she has moved the tale itself from the court of King Arthur to 18th century Jamaica. And she has shifted the setting of its lengthy Prologue – in which our lusty heroine “describes how she bamboozled her five husbands and kept their peckers up”, while decrying those who judge her (priests in the original, “slut shamers” now) – to the boozer across the road from the theatre, in the novelist’s home borough of Brent.
Robert Jones has turned the auditorium into a pub-cum-cabaret space, where “light bounces off shelves of bottles” and the “punters – from church, temple, mosque, shul and utter godlessness – jostle to tell their stories”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
I feared a “clever-clever” Chaucer pastiche, said Clive Davis in The Times. Instead, Smith has delivered a “stunning piece of freewheeling stagecraft”: this is a “glorious” show which proves that a 14th-century work “can still speak to a modern public without the help of footnotes”.
Credit for that must go partly to Smith’s “incantatory” adaptation, which nimbly weaves the old with the new, but the success of the night also depends on a “magnificent” central performance from Clare Perkins as the Wife – here called Alvita.
Perkins “plays a belter”, agreed Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail. She “sets all before her ablaze with a bonfire personality”, as she “shifts effortlessly through the gears” – “daring, dismissive, doting, devious and very randy”.
Yet the real “delight” of the night, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph, is the way Smith has “honoured the source in terms of its poetic verve, answering Chaucer’s couplets with ingenious rhymes of her own”, and creating a “continuum” of female expression across the centuries. This “rambunctious” show establishes her as a “first-rate dramatist” and – at just 100 minutes – “leaves you begging for more”.
Kiln Theatre, London NW6 (020-7328 1000). Until 15 January
-
Nepal chooses toddler as its new ‘living goddess’Under the Radar Girls between two and four are typically chosen to live inside the temple as the Kumari – until puberty strikes
-
October 5 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include half-truth hucksters, Capitol lockdown, and more
-
Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber bailoutTalking Point Should the government do more to protect business from the ‘cyber shockwave’?
-
Mustardy beans and hazelnuts recipeThe Week Recommends Nod to French classic offers zingy, fresh taste
-
Susie Dent picks her favourite booksThe Week Recommends The lexicographer and etymologist shares works by Jane Goodall, Noel Streatfeild and Madeleine Pelling
-
6 incredible homes under $1 millionFeature Featuring a home in the National Historic Landmark District of Virginia and a renovated mid-century modern house in Washington
-
The Harder They Come: ‘triumphant’ adaptation of cinema classicThe Week Recommends ‘Uniformly excellent’ cast follow an aspiring musician facing the ‘corruption’ of Kingston, Jamaica
-
House of Guinness: ‘rip-roaring’ Dublin brewing dynasty period dramaThe Week Recommends The Irish series mixes the family tangles of ‘Downton’ and ‘Succession’ for a ‘dark’ and ‘quaffable’ watch
-
Dead of Winter: a ‘kick-ass’ hostage thrillerThe Week Recommends Emma Thompson plays against type in suspenseful Minnesota-set hair-raiser ‘ringing with gunshots’
-
A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?Talking Point Dominated by middle-aged authors, this year’s list is a return to ‘good old-fashioned literary fiction’
-
Fractured France: an ‘informative and funny’ enquiryThe Week Recommends Andrew Hussey's work is a blend of ‘memoir, travelogue and personal confession’
