Modern TV loves a "gritty" reboot, but back in 2003, the BBC did something genuinely bizarre. They took Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century poetic masterpiece—a book most people only remember from agonizing high school English classes—and turned it into a star-studded, contemporary anthology. This wasn't some stuffy period piece with corsets and powdered wigs. No, the Canterbury Tales TV series gave us James Nesbitt as a scamming con man and Billie Piper as a runaway bride.
It was bold. It was loud. Honestly, it was a bit of a gamble that shouldn't have worked.
The premise was simple enough: adapt six of the original stories into modern-day settings. The Miller’s Tale became a story about a karaoke competition. The Wife of Bath turned into an aging TV star looking for love. By ditching the Middle English and the horses, the showrunners managed to prove something that scholars have been shouting for centuries. Chaucer wasn't writing for the elite; he was writing about the messy, horny, greedy, and hilarious reality of being human.
The Miller's Tale: Karaoke and Chaos
The first episode usually sets the tone, and "The Miller's Tale" didn't hold back. James Nesbitt plays Nick, a charming drifter who rolls into a quiet town and immediately starts sleeping with the wife of a local landlord. If you’ve read the original, you know the drill. There’s a "flood" coming, a window, and a very unfortunate case of mistaken identity involving someone’s backside.
It’s crude. It’s funny.
What's fascinating is how the series handles the "fabliau" style. In the Middle Ages, these were raunchy, comic stories meant to poke fun at social classes. By setting it in a pub with a karaoke machine, the BBC tapped into that exact same energy. You don’t need 14th-century context to understand a guy getting tricked into kissing a butt through a window. That's just timeless comedy.
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Dennis Potter’s influence feels heavy here, though he wasn't involved. There’s that specific British vibe of "everything is a bit damp and everyone is a bit miserable, but let’s have a drink anyway."
Why the Canterbury Tales TV series actually mattered for 2000s TV
In the early 2000s, British television was undergoing a weird transition. We were moving away from the safe, cozy dramas of the 90s and into something a bit more experimental. This series was a bridge. It featured actors who were about to become massive stars.
- Billie Piper was just transitioning from pop star to actress before Doctor Who made her a household name.
- Andrew Lincoln was years away from fighting zombies in The Walking Dead.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor was proving he was one of the best actors of his generation long before his Oscar nomination.
- Keeley Hawes and Julie Walters brought a level of prestige that made the "trashy" elements of the stories feel like high art.
You see, the BBC didn't just want to educate people. They wanted to entertain. They hired different writers for each episode, including Peter Bowker and Sally Wainwright. Wainwright, who later gave us Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack, wrote "The Wife of Bath." She took Chaucer's most iconic character and turned her into Beth, a woman who has been married many times and refuses to apologize for her sexuality. It’s arguably the strongest episode of the lot because it captures the feminist undertone that Chaucer (perhaps accidentally) created 600 years ago.
The struggle of adapting Middle English
Let’s be real: reading Chaucer is hard. "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote..." is beautiful, but it's basically a foreign language to a casual viewer.
The Canterbury Tales TV series solved this by completely stripping away the language while keeping the "frame narrative" structure. In the book, a group of pilgrims are traveling to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. In the TV show, the pilgrimage is more metaphorical. These characters are all on journeys—some are looking for love, some for money, and some for a way to escape their pasts.
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Critics at the time were split. Some felt it was "dumbing down" the classics. Others, like the late critic A.A. Gill, often pointed out when adaptations lost their soul in the move to modernity. But looking back, this series was remarkably faithful to the spirit of the text. Chaucer was a civil servant who saw the worst of people. He saw the corruption in the church and the greed in the marketplace. By placing "The Pardoner's Tale" in the world of three petty crooks looking for a hidden stash of money, the show nailed the cynical irony of the original poem.
The "Lost" episodes and the ones that stuck
Not every episode was a hit. "The Knight’s Tale" was reimagined as a story about two prisoners in a modern jail falling for the same woman they see through their window. It’s a bit melodramatic. Compared to the frantic energy of "The Reeve's Tale" or the emotional weight of "The Wife of Bath," it feels a little slow.
But that’s the beauty of the anthology format. If you don't like one, the next one is completely different.
The show also leaned into the music of the era. The soundtracks are very "Cool Britannia"—lots of indie vibes and pop hits that date the show perfectly to 2003. It's a time capsule. It captures a moment when the BBC was willing to take a huge budget and throw it at a bunch of experimental scripts based on old poems.
Why you should actually go back and watch it
Honestly? Because it's short.
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Each episode is a standalone movie. You don't need to commit to five seasons of lore. You can just jump in. It’s also a masterclass in how to adapt "unadaptable" material. If you're a writer or a filmmaker, seeing how they turned a story about a literal rooster ("The Nun's Priest's Tale") into a story about a struggling talent agent (played by Robert Carlyle) is genuinely inspiring. It shows that plot beats are universal.
The series reminds us that humans haven't changed. We still lie to get what we want. We still obsess over our exes. We still get into ridiculous fights over nothing. Chaucer knew that in 1390, and the BBC knew it in 2003.
How to get the most out of the series today
If you're going to dive into the Canterbury Tales TV series, don't treat it like a history lesson.
- Watch the Wife of Bath first. Julie Walters is a powerhouse. It’s the most "human" of the episodes and requires zero prior knowledge of the book.
- Compare it to the original summary. If you’re a nerd, read the SparkNotes for the original tale before watching the episode. Seeing the creative leaps the writers took—like turning a literal "Loathly Lady" into a modern beauty standard—is fascinating.
- Check the cast list. Half the fun is seeing famous faces before they were "the" famous faces. Look for a young James Corden or Bill Nighy popping up in unexpected places.
- Look for the DVD. Streaming rights for these older BBC anthologies can be a nightmare. You can often find the physical disc for pennies at thrift stores or on eBay. It's worth having the physical copy because it's rarely on the major platforms like Netflix or Disney+.
The show isn't perfect. Some of the "modern" tech like the brick-sized cell phones and the dial-up internet references will make you wince. But the storytelling? That’s still sharp. It’s a reminder that good stories don't die; they just change their clothes.
Next time you’re scrolling through a sea of generic streaming content, look for this relic of 2000s British TV. It’s messy, it’s loud, and it’s a lot more fun than your high school teacher made it sound. It’s the kind of television that doesn't really get made anymore—daring, slightly intellectual, but totally unpretentious.
To truly appreciate the series, start with the episodes written by Sally Wainwright or Peter Bowker. They understood that the heart of Chaucer wasn't the pilgrimage itself, but the people who were walking it. You’ll find that the "Canterbury" of the 21st century looks remarkably like the world outside your own window.
Next Steps for Enthusiasts
- Track down the DVD set: Search online marketplaces for the 2003 BBC release; it often contains behind-the-scenes interviews with the writers on how they "translated" the 14th-century themes.
- Read the "No Fear" translation: If the TV show sparks your interest, read a modern English prose version of the tales alongside the episodes to see which plot points were kept and which were discarded for the screen.
- Explore other BBC "re-told" series: If you enjoyed this style, look for ShakespeareRetold (2005), which applied the same modernizing logic to plays like Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing.