THE DECAMERON

Last week I went to BBC Maida Vale to record a drama.  It seemed like a comedy and I wasn’t sure what it was about so I googled it.  The Decameron is a collection of 100 tales by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio written between 1350 and 1353

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Writers such as Shakespeare and Chaucer are said to have borrowed from it. The tale begins with 7 women and 3 men who move to a country villa to escape the Black Death in Florence. The group stays there for fourteen days and on ten of those days they each tell one tale on a set theme. Each day a different person is King or Queen and they decide what the theme will be. One character Dioneo, who usually tells the tenth tale each day, has the right to tell a tale on any topic he wishes, due to his wit.

 

The tales are about love, death and tragedy and sometimes in a comic manner.  They paint a vivid picture of the times.

Ten Day Decameron will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014   Adapted from Boccaccio by Robin Brooks and Directed by Jonquil Panting.