IN THE hands of Yorkshire company Northern Broadsides, Mike Poulton’s riotous reworking of Chaucer’s medieval capers The Canterbury Tales is “very vulgar, very bawdy, very funny, very Broadsides”.

Presented in partnership with the New Vic Theatre, Conrad Nelson’s production plays Leeds and Scarborough over the month ahead, bringing to life a motley crew of individuals – the Knight, Miller, Squire, Wife of Bath, Pardoner, Reeve, Monk, Merchant and more – as they gather for their pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral.

On the way from the Tabard Inn in London, Chaucer’s 14th century pilgrims regale each other with colourful tales to pass the time of day: love stories, rude stories, lewd farce, high romance, chivalry, villainy and jousting. Poetry and puppetry and song and dance bring further colour to Broadsides’ show.

“There’s a vast canvas of humanity here, and that’s what makes The Canterbury Tales defy time, like a good piece of Shakespeare,” says Conrad. “So they’ll have immediacy for us, whether they’re about base things or more elevated things.

“We’re rich as a race and we’re full of contradictions; these tales show our darker side and our more fun side and we should embrace those contradictions.”

All life is here, albeit not quite as broadly spread as in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, when the tales were performed over two nights.

“I asked Mike to make it a one-night show and to pick the tales he liked best, and we encouraged him to have the pilgrims as the mortice of the piece, telling the tales,” says Conrad. “In all, we have 16 actors playing 80 parts between them, as well as being cast as the pilgrims.”

Each tale has a different taste, colour, smell and character, he suggests.

“Some are poetical tales, some are fun tales, some are thwarted tales, and drama is inherent in all of them. They should feel like a complete set of tales but with individual characteristics, so you have a series of sorbets that refresh the palate rather than one lump of steak,” says Conrad.

Poulton employs mainly a “rough iambic” rhythm in his stage adaptation.

“That makes the language very listenable and forward moving, with the meaning at the end of the sentence. The clue is in the end, so the actors can’t cut the rhythm up and make a nonsense of it,” says Conrad.

“If Mike feels he can use words from Chaucer’s time, he does use them, so he starts with the old English and then melds it with modern English, and that means there’s a nod to the original but it’s also contemporary.”

Northern Broadsides present The Canterbury Tales at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, from today until April 17 and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from April 19 to 24. Box office: Leeds, 0113 213 7700; Scarborough, 01423 370541.