The General Prologue & The Physician’s Tale

in Middle English and modern verse translations

Read by Richard Bebb, Philip Madoc & Stephen Tompkinson

unabridged

The Canterbury Tales are widely read and studied. The Middle English in which they were first written differs sufficiently from modern English, in vocabulary and usage, that most of us require a contemporary translation. On this recording the ‘General Prologue’ and ‘The Physician’s Tale’ are read in Middle English by Richard Bebb, under the direction of a leading Chaucerian scholar, Professor Derek Brewer. It is an authoritative performance that brilliantly evokes the fourteenth-century world, both for the general reader and the student alike. This is followed by a witty modern verse translation, and provides a fascinating contrast with the original.

Running Time: 2 h 18 m

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More product details

Digital ISBN:	978-962-954-649-6
Cat. no.:	NA240012
Download size:	34 MB
Translated by:	Frank Ernest Hill
BISAC:	POE022000
Released:	December 2005

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Richard Bebb

Born in London in 1927, Richard Bebb was educated at Highgate School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He became an actor in 1947 in Michael Redgrave’s Macbeth and then spent two years in repertory at Buxton and Croydon, where he met his future wife, the late Gwen Watford. They married in 1952 and had two sons. From 1950 he worked regularly in all the theatrical media. He has appeared in a handful of West End plays, made over a thousand broadcasts, including sharing the narration with Richard Burton in the BBC recording of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and also appeared in almost two hundred television plays, including Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution; among other television appearances were Barchester Towers and Agatha Christie’s A Murder Has Been Announced. His one important film appearance was as the successful cricketer in Terence Rattigan’s The Final Test. He owns the largest collection of historic 78s of opera singers in England and has lectured at Yale, Harvard, Princetown and the Smithsonion on theatrical and musical subjects. He discovered the unknown cylinder recordings of Sir Henry Irving.

Titles read by Richard Bebb

Titles read by Richard Bebb: The Essential Dylan Thomas (unabridged); The General Prologue & The Physician’s Tale (unabridged); The Knyghte’s Tale (unabridged); The Pardoners Tale (unabridged); Under Milk Wood and other plays (unabridged)

Philip Madoc

Philip Madoc’s extensive theatre work includes the roles of Othello and Iago, Faust and Macbeth and, with the RSC, The Duke in Measure for Measure and Professor Raat in The Blue Angel. TV roles include Lloyd George, Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, Brookside and A Mind to Kill. He reads The Death of Arthur, Canterbury Tales I and the part of Host in Canterbury Tales II, Arabian Nights, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Old Testament, Romeo and Juliet and The Essential Dylan Thomas for Naxos AudioBooks.

Titles read by Philip Madoc

Titles read by Philip Madoc: The Arabian Nights (abridged); The Canterbury Tales II (unabridged); The Canterbury Tales III (unabridged); The Canterbury Tales (unabridged); The Death of Arthur (Le Morte d’Arthur) (abridged); The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire – Part 1 (abridged); The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire – Part 2 (abridged); The Essential Dylan Thomas (unabridged); A Family Christmas (unabridged); The General Prologue & The Physician’s Tale (unabridged); The Moon of Gomrath (unabridged); The Old Testament (selections); Poems of the Orient (selections); Romeo and Juliet (unabridged); Samson Agonistes (unabridged); The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (unabridged)

Stephen Tompkinson

Stephen Tompkinson has wide experience in television, film, radio and theatre. His most recent television work includes the third series of In Deep, Ted and Alice and the lead role in Lucky Jim. Television plays and single episodes include Flint Street Nativity, First Signs Of Madness, A Very Open Prison, The Deep Blue Sea, Casualty and as Eric in And A Nightingale Sang. Stephen’s films include the critically acclaimed Brassed Off, Treacle, Hotel Splendide, and Tabloid TV. He has also had parts in a wide range of plays including Ivan in Art and Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace (both West End) the title role in Tartuffe (on tour), Paul in No One Sees The Video (Royal Court), Alec in Across The Ferry (Bush Theatre) and Tony in Women Laughing (Manchester Royal Exchange).

Titles read by Stephen Tompkinson

Titles read by Stephen Tompkinson: The Canterbury Tales III (unabridged); The General Prologue & The Physician’s Tale (unabridged)

Geoffrey Chaucer

The General Prologue & The Physician’s Tale

Read by Richard Bebb, Philip Madoc & Stephen Tompkinson

unabridged

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