Confessions of a Part-Time Theatre Reviewer; before I came to the Castle on opening night, I knew absolutely arse all about Chaucer and his magnum opus. Naturally, I knew there was some smut in it, but without the aid of pictures I couldn’t find any. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t enjoy it, to be honest.

 

Then I noticed that they’d fitted a bar in the marquee and you could go up and get a pint during the show.

 

Here’s the deal; it’s 1976, and the tiny village of East Filching has organised a Canterbury Tale-telling competition. Although the village only seems to have half a dozen people living it, an extremely versatile cast – the local busybody, a tousle-haired teenager, a couple of lovable scab-rats, the owners of the pub, and the village strumpet - get well and truly stuck into the best bits of the play – y’know, the tales that involve the most violence and shagging.

 

They even have a genuine 70s icon in attendance; the one and only pre-Minder Dennis Waterman. Except he hasn’t turned up (and neither has Alvin Stardust, who was supposed to play the lead but had to pull out). Luckily, Robin Askwith happens to be running down the street with his trousers off, and gets roped in.

 

Not only does he actually still look like Robin Askwith, a huge achievement  considering what he must have got up to in his prime, he demonstrates that he can ham it up like a good ‘un, content to sit back and let the rest of the cast do their thing and chiming in to keep the pace up. And he even reveals how he managed to get the soap bubbles to come out of his arse in that Confessions film, so it’s all very educational. No disrespect to Alvin, but I doubt he would have been able to carry it off as well.

 

What we have here, folks, is a summer Panto. Yes, it’s well filthy, but there were plenty of kids in attendance (you could see their parents dragging them across the benches so they could get a better look). You don’t have to worry about the vagaries of Middle English, as Phil Woods, who’s written over 60 hours of Coronation Street, has translated the text into Carry Onglish – an old dirty bastardisation, if you will. Chuck in a band lead by the Godfather of the East Midlands music scene himself, Grantham’s Vince Eager, and a couple of hours of quality smut passes very nicely indeed.

 

Criticisms? A few. The 70s angle is barely touched upon (the cast aren’t even wearing flares, for God’s sake) - but then again, for a lot of the audience, the era of kipper ties and power cuts is almost as distant as the one of plague and feudalism. And it would have been brilliant if they had done it in the open air, but then again, as the wind whipped across the marquee roof, it was just as well they played it safe.

 

So, if you’re looking for an evening that touches on such grotesque things as rimming, poisoning, having sex with mangled old hags, stabbings, drunken foursomes, bare arses hanging out of windows and the oeuvre of The Osmonds whilst necking pints, The Canterbury Tales is right up your alley. It’s probably the most entertaining thing you’ll see in a Notts theatre this year.