ANOTHER resounding success for the Tuckwell Amphitheatre's festival.

The Pantaloons came to town with their hilarious version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

We all felt a moment of doubt as the company kicked off with the beginning of the prologue in genuine Middle English: "Than longen folke to goon on pilgrimages."

Oh dear, is this going to be heavy going, the audience thought? Not a bit of it. This was a modern production, featuring a talking crow, puppets, anachronistic jokes about X-Factor and Mr Cholmondeley- Walker type skits.

Imagine Benny Hill in charge of the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury and you'd be fairly close to the feel of the evening.

Greatly enjoyed were the proximity of red hot pokers to bottoms, the risque rhyming couplets and the Pardoner busily flogging his phials of angel droppings.

A pacey show, the company managed to romp through all 23 of the tales and even to introduce a final improvised story, featuring audience members. All this and original music too.

Caitlin Storey made a convincingly buxom Wife of Bath, but the man who had the audience eating out of his hand throughout was newcomer David Alwyn.

He took a multitude of parts and played them all with versatility and wit. I think his is a name we shall be hearing a lot of in the future.

A return visit by The Pantaloons is promised for next year with the popular farce The Importance of Being Ernest.

I'll be getting my ticket as soon as booking opens.

Avril Hemingfield