How A Knight’s Tale musical is changing the stars for silly shows

We’re a nation that just loves silly shows.

We love to laugh out loud – and it’s infectious. Look no further than the gargantuan success of Mischief – with not one, but two new shows coming to the West End this year, and Operation Mincemeat, the little show that could, taking Broadway by storm.

Now, the musical adaptation of A Knight’s Tale may ride on that wave when it receives its world premiere in Manchester this April.

The production, faithful to the film, opens with a nude Max Bennett (as Chaucer). “Beware if you’ve booked aisle seats…” Bennett wouldn’t reveal more than that.

The adaptation is a homage to Brian Helgeland’s 2001 film starring Heath Ledger. Wildly inaccurate, camp for its time, and a silly adventure, it follows William Thatcher, a 14th-century peasant squire who breaks all the rules when he passes himself off as a nobleman in the hopes of becoming the world champion of jousting.

Now a jukebox musical, directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, it’s filled to the rafters with big tunes, all pre-dating – more-or-less – the film’s initial release.

“S Club 7? I’m as surprised as you are.” Bennett quips partway through one of the numbers. It’s a brash move when you consider the original soundtrack features the likes of David Bowie, Queen, and AC/DC. Alongside “Reach” and Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero,” there are more anachronistic tunes, but it’s all very hush-hush – except for knowing there are new arrangements, loops, and harmonies from Alan Berry.

“The band’s on stage,” says Emile Ruddock, who plays Roland. It’s like they’re in the stands, cheering on the knights on their noble steeds. “I think it’s so valuable to see the music being created at the same time that we’re singing to it. From an audience perspective, you get double the joy,” he ventures. “I find it sad when the band is hidden away.”

To describe the show in a word, Ruddock lands on “brazen”. “There are a lot of filters that could be put on this show, and they aren’t… For a mainstream musical to go where this is going, I think it makes all the difference.”

Kavagnaugh adds that she laughed out loud when she received Brona C Titley’s script. “I already loved the film, but I thought she had done an amazing pass at it – to use a jousting metaphor – where she had injected it with a contemporary sensibility and an extra sprinkle of silliness.

“It just felt irresistible, and the type of theatre I love to make.”

Giles Taylor (who’s playing Father) commented: “[The creative team] are so open to changes. Brona has adapted the film and added flavour, but she’s so open with it,” he winks. “When she comes in [to rehearsals], she just cackles with laughter at everything we’re doing. So it’s very gratifying.”

Humour reigns supreme in the adaptation. There are fart jokes, gags, and deadpans galore. “We’ve dialed up the comedy in this,” says Eva Scott, who plays What. “If a song ever gets too serious, or basically if the show ever gets too impressive with the amazing dancers and singers, then just wheel me in and I’ll say something about a pie and then leave,” she adds with British modesty.

Oliver Tompsett, who’s taking on the villainous role of Count Adhemar, laughs “I think I’m probably going to get boo’d on my bows. I don’t think I’ve done my job properly if I don’t!”

He references honouring Rufus Sewell’s iconic turn in the film: “But he didn’t have to burst out into pop song every few minutes, so there’s probably a little bit of Julian Clary in my performance as well.”

The cast are already having to plot out the times where they can’t make eye contact else they’ll reduce to fits of laughter. “And that’s without costumes and wigs and make-up, because some of us are just going to look outlandish,” Taylor chuckles.

In the adaptation, “good time guy” Chaucher, aka the father of English literature, directly addresses the audience as an informal narrator. Bennett, who comes from a background of Shakespeare, embraces the addition. “It’s exciting talking to the audience, especially when they don’t expect it,” he laughs that some ad-libs may be essential. “The tone of the show is fun and effervescent, and that encourages it!”

Jokes aside, just for a moment. While the show is faithful to the film, there have been updates. “It’s set in the middle ages, but it’s about now,” Bennett explains. “There have been updates in terms of better representing today’s world in terms of gender politics and sexuality.”

“Gender is a social construct that seems to be a bit looser in our medieval era, which I think is exactly what you would expect to see when you’re coming to see a show,” says Emily Benjamin, who’s adding a South Walean tang to Kate.

Explaining that there are female guards and female knights, the most noticeable change perhaps is that, in the film, What is played by a man. “In our version, What is a gender-fluid person,” Scott says. “But equally as full of anger as they are in the film.”

Meesha Turner, who’s playing her first romantic lead in Jocelyn, confirms: “There’s definitely been more character development for the characters, particularly Jocelyn and Kate. They’ve been fleshed out and given more authority and substance. It has been bought into 2025 with the morality of it all and feminism.”

Benjamin adds: “In the film, Kate can be quite a background character; she has some beautiful moments, but in the musical, I’ve been allowed to open up her inner world and see the workings of her brain.”

Playing the lead, Andrew Coshan has had to navigate jousting on stage (read more about how they’re doing that here), and his character goes on quite a journey, both on horseback and figuratively speaking. “I think that this is a show that will have people belly-laughing at one scene and crying at another,” he says. “It’s a beautiful story that can affect the audience and give them a full range of emotion.”

Kavagnaugh is a self-confessed “big fan of silliness and lightheartedness,” explaining: “I think there’s a real need for it at the moment, nationally and globally, and it’s one of the great things that theatre can offer.”

Fianlly, WhatsOnStage Award-winning choreographer Matt Cole puts it best: “I want to go to the theatre and come out feeling better than when I went in, and I think shows like this do that.”

A Knight’s Tale runs at Manchester Opera House from 11 April to 10 May 2025, with tickets on sale below.