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Cast and Crew

• Writer: - Sally Wainwright
• Director: - Andy De Emmony
• Producer: - Kate Bartlett
• Cast Includes:
  • Paul Nicholls (Jerome Adams / 'Gary')
  • Julie Walters (Beth Craddock / 'Ros')
  • Bill Nighy (James Dunbar)
• First UK Transmission date: BBC1, 18 September 2003

Reviews

This new sequence of dramas, new interpretations of Chaucer's classic tales, is set to be the flagship of the BBC's autumn schedule.

The BBC claims that the new adaptations of six of Chaucer's 24 tales, each scripted by a different writer, will not religiously follow the plots and characters of the originals - nor their medieval language but will remain true to their "themes".

In this new version of the most famous story, The Wife of Bath's Tale, Julie Walters will play Beth Craddock, a Canterbury soap star who finds short-lived comfort in the arms of her twenty-something co-star, Jerome, played by Paul Nicholls, when her fourth husband deserts her. Or, as the BBC put it:

A vibrant and larger than life woman in her forties, falls in love with a younger man following the death of her husband. Her story reflects upon the society's obsession with youth and womens' relationship with their physical appearance in a world of botox and plastic surgery safaris.

The cast list for other Tales in the series includes: Jonny Lee Miller, James Nesbitt, Dennis Waterman, Andrew Lincoln, John Simm, Om Puri and Billie Piper.

Interview with Sally Wainwright (writer), BBC - August 2003

"Chaucer's Wife of Bath was a feminist ahead of her time,"insists writer Sally Wainwright, "but then she lets herself down by this Achilles' heel of having to have a man in her life. She's one of those women who just doesn't seem to be able to function unless she's part of someone else.

"That can still be true so I made Beth in charge of her own TV production company, to give her a power that the Wife of Bath seems to have. She's ebullient, she's full of energy, she's got very focused ideas about what she wants to do. She's very sure of her own opinions and doesn't seem to care what other people think of her.

"She's very confident, apart from this need for a man. She can't feel complete in herself unless she's got one."

Wainwright – creator of At Home With The Braithwaites and Sparkhouse, a sex-swap reworking of Wuthering Heights – loved the idea of this vulnerability in a strong woman."One of the unusual things about the original is that the prologue is longer than the Tale itself, even though the tale is very interesting.

"So I felt it was important to represent both. That's why I chose to make Beth an actress, to tell two stories, the story of her real life and the story of what she does in the TV programme.

"Initially I wanted to make her someone who hadn't given in to the tyranny of wanting to look young. She's someone who was successful enough to be able to say, 'I'm old and proud of it and I don't care.'

But she feels she needs to hold on to this young man so much."

So taken with Chaucer's verse was this former Coronation Street writer that she even included a saucy original line in the script. "Beth is very drunk and says she 'wouldn't begrudge her Chamber of Venus to a likely lad!'," she laughs.

"I was thrilled when they got Julie Walters on board and Paul Nicholls, who's fantastic – I'm a big fan of Paul's. Then, when I had to do any rewrites, I just couldn't help thinking of Julie's voice and I was conscious at times of making it funnier as a result!"

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