The Canterbury Tales/Northern Broadsides with the New Vic

What's to be got by transferring Chaucer's tales from page to the stage? A multifaceted encounter with a bawdy, mystical, hilarious world 600 years old and fresh as a morning in May, that's what. On a seemingly infinitely manipulable wooden set (Lis Evans's design, Lee Threadgold's puppeteering), horses prance, conjured from sacks and pitchforks; a child toddles, fashioned from folded cloth; a windmill turns its ladder sails (while, inside, a windy miller trumps his bedclothes airborne). Characters (and with 16 actors playing multiple roles, they are legion) spring to life in glorious caricature, luminous with humanity. Director-composer Conrad Nelson deploys strings, brass and percussion, played by the mercurial cast, to modulate the lightening-flash transitions of subject and mood, while Mike Poulton's updated text remains as invigorating as a high wind over the downs in spring.