TOLD by all levels of society – from a chivalrous knight to a bawdy much-married widow – Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales provide a snapshot of the medieval period.

And on their Brighton Fringe debut in situ Theatre is creating a 14th century atmosphere with their site-specific reimagining of Chaucer’s Middle English masterwork.

Preston Old Church will host the performance, which will see characters clustered outside telling their stories, while inside the church is taken back more than 600 years with medieval chanting, authentic language and presentations about life in the period.

The original production was performed more than ten years ago in Cambridge’s Leper Chapel, and revisited again in 2013 by a new cast.

“Outside the church the storytellers are telling their tales all at the same time,” says artistic director Richard Spaul, pictured right, who will be recounting both The Miller’s and Wife Of Bath’s tales.

“There’s a fairground or market feeling to it all. The audience can move from one story to another, or listen to several at the same time.

“Inside, the church has a different atmosphere – it’s more solemn and medieval, with the actors using the original middle English. We’re hoping to give the audience a feeling of the medieval world, which can’t be done by just dressing up in funny clothes.”

The Middle English of Chaucer’s work hasn’t caused too many headaches for the performances inside the church.

“If you read Chaucer off the page it can be harder than if an actor has understood it and can present it,” says Spaul. “There’s a magical feeling to it. When the actor tells the story in their own persona it brings other things out.”

Outside the church the actors don’t stick slavishly to the original text, or a Neville Coghill-style poetical translation.

Instead Spaul says the performances are much more naturalistic in modern English.

It builds on in situ’s recent short story work, reinterpreting the 100 tales of The Decameron and the ghost stories of Edgar Allen Poe, Edith Wharton and Elisabeth Bowen.

“We have focused on storytelling as a branch of improvisation,” he says. “We don’t learn the words of the story and then say it – the actors understand the story, and it changes each time they tell it, with the emphasis in different places.”

Brighton Fringe: The Canterbury Tales Preston Old Church, Preston Drove, Brighton, Saturday, May 16, and Sunday, May 17