Early tales of a province

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33794, 17 March 1975, Page 19

Early tales of a province

' The voyage of the ' pioneers and the begini nings of the Canterbury i settlement are to be traversed in a dramatic account of “Early Can- ; terbury Tales” in the I Court Theatre for six days this week. , The Arts Festival item is ■ a personal selection by Mildred Woods, stage, radio anc . television personality, and is more concerned with people ! than with documented hisi tory. , Both Mildred Woods and . Annette Facer, in compiling I the programme, have hac ; access to unpublished mat- ■ erial, and while some of it ■jmay be familiar to the scholar, much of it comes ;|from diaries of colonists and 'emigrants. ’ The show is not. as some

have been inclined to think,] ’a one-woman version of] ] Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. : The programme covers the] beginnings in England of the ; plan for settlement, the col-: lection and selection of] colonists, the voyage out,] and some tales of the early! days after the First Four] Ships arrived in Lyttelton] Harbour. The designer is Peter Les] Jefferies, also the designer of Molier’s “Tartuffe.” “Early Canterbury Tales” is being presented by the literary committee of the Christchurch Arts Festival. The show’s season coincides with an exhibition of historic New Zealand paintings at the Canterbury Museum. The exhibition is staged in a setting reproducing the Durham Street Gal-I ] lery of the 1850 s, the first! art gallery in the Canterbury! province. I,