Canterbury Tales (musical): History and Key Facts

Canterbury Tales is a British musical based on Chaucer's fourteenth-century collection of stories published under the same title. The show was first given in Oxford in 1964 and subsequently presented in the West End, on Broadway and in Australia and Continental Europe. It was conceived by the actor and director Martin Starkie and co-written with Nevill Coghill, whose modern-English translation of Chaucer's original had been published in 1951. The music was by John Hawkins and Richard Hill.

The first London production ran for 2,082 performances – at the time, one of the longest runs in West End history. There have been a few revivals since the original productions. A sequel, presented in 1979, failed.

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