IF you thought history was dull, this production will have you shaking your head in disbelief.
Four Nights in Knaresborough is the Medieval period for the Reservoir Dogs generation and makes no attempt to spare the audience from ribald humour, four letter words and full frontal male nudity.
The story revolves around an unlikely quartet of knights who are sent by King Henry II to arrest the archbishop of Canterbury and end up murdering him. The four take refuge in Knaresborough Castle with the play dipping into their enforced stay.
It's full of tension, frustration and some wonderfully surreal comedy. The setting may be the Twelfth Century but the language is of today and it's as colourful as the knight's blood-spattered tunics.
Ben Hull, he of Hollyoaks and Brookside fame, proves that soaps stars can really act as the jack-the-lad Brito. Marshall Griffin is a genuinely pathetic Morville. Matthew Rixon, as Traci, is the intellectual of the quartet and a commanding presence, but it is Graham McTavish as the brooding and occasionally psychotic Fitz who shines.
Occasionally I felt it tried too hard to be laddish and the nude bathing scene did seem to me to be one attempt to shock too far.
But if you're broad minded, Four Nights in Knaresborough is an enthralling, funny and challenging evening, on until Saturday, March 27. Details from 01204 520661.
JOHN ANSON
Four Nights in Knaresborough, at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton.
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