Image credit Paul McGuigan

Upcoming Performances

Green Knight will be at Durham Fringe from 24-26 July – you can buy tickets from https://durhamfringe.co.uk/

Thank you to everyone who came to see Green Knight at Brighton Fringe in 2023, and in the fantastic Dundee Fringe, and at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We had wonderful audiences, several four-star reviews and one five-star review, and three sell-out shows.

Green Knight is a theatre/storytelling piece based on the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  It premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe, with performances at the Royal Scots Club. All Edinburgh Theatre described the show as ‘a captivating performance’ and ‘storytelling at its very best’, while Broadway Baby praised it as ‘enthralling’ and ‘not only a seduction of Sir Gawain but of the audience too as they are beguiled and teased.’

A monstrous green knight interrupts the Christmas feast at King Arthur’s court to issue an unwinnable challenge. A year later, one of Arthur’s knights sets out to take up the challenge and finds himself tested not only by the monster, but also by a young wife with her own game to play. In this one-woman show, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is retold by the woman at its heart, seizing, for the first time, the chance to offer her version of the age of Camelot and the game of love.

Green Knight is written and performed by Debbie Cannon. The director is Flavia D’Avila of Fronteiras Theatre Lab. Jen McGregor has provided dramaturgy and voicework.

Green Knight is available for further bookings and touring! Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss possible bookings.

Previous Performances:

Brighton Fringe, May 2023

Dundee Fringe, September 2022

Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2022

Edinburgh Acting School, May 2021

York Theatre Royal, 5 February 2020

Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2019

Green Man Gallery, Buxton Fringe, July 2018 and 2019

Royal Scots Club, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2017

Green Knight had a wonderful run in 2018 and 2019 at Buxton Festival Fringe in the beautiful Green Man Gallery! In addition to lovely audience responses, we also received fantastic reviews, from Buxton Fringe 2018, and 2019, and a five star review from Fringe Guru! I was honoured also to receive the award for best female actor at Buxton Fringe 2018.

Fringe Guru described the show as a ‘superlative piece of storytelling theatre’, ‘filled with beautiful, evocative turns of phrase, at times painting vivid pictures and at times exploring delicate emotions … I, too, enjoyed being seduced by Cannon’s performance – captured by her exceptional stage presence, beguiled by her well-crafted words.’

Reviews:

2022 (Edinburgh Festival Fringe) –

All Edinburgh Theatre

Broadway Baby

Lothian Life

Corr Blimey

2018-2019 (Buxton Fringe) –

Fringe Guru

Buxton Fringe Review

2017 (Edinburgh Festival Fringe) –

All Edinburgh Theatre

Broadway Baby

Green Knight extras:

If you’d like to get into the Green Knight zone, you might like to listen into this Green Knight Spotify playlist. It’s a compilation of some of the music I listened to for inspiration when I was writing and rehearsing the play, including Hildegard of Bingen, Ecco la Primavera and Prince!

Last year I did an interview about my work and the development of Green Knight with the brilliant young actor Daniel Hird, who was at Buxton Fringe with his show Old Bones. You can listen to it here.

Michael Smith of Mythical Britain has been a great supporter of Green Knight. After coming to see it at Buxton Fringe this year, he published an in-depth review, discussing the show but also the themes of the medieval poem. You can read his review here.

 

The fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an Arthurian romance which survives in only one manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x. The author, often referred to as the Pearl Poet or Gawain Poet, is unknown. I first read the poem in the summer of 1989, when I decided to start early on reading for my first term in university, which was dedicated to medieval literature. I’ve loved it ever since, and I’ve become very absorbed in developing the story into a stage play, weaving in ideas about women and life in the Middle Ages.

I was delighted, while promoting Green Knight, to make contact with the print-maker and artist Michael Smith, who has produced beautiful linocut prints inspired by scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In addition, Michael is publishing a high-quality edition of his own translation of the poem, illustrated with his prints. Michael’s work can be viewed on his Mythical Britain website, and you can find out more about his translation of the poem, and buy copies here.

The fantastic Channel 7A produced two trailers for Green Knight for us. You can view them here and here.

Edinburgh. UK. 28.07.22. “The Green Knight”, written and performed by Debbie Cannon, is performed as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Directed by Flavia D’Avila, with dramaturgy by Jen McGregor. Picture shows: Debbie Cannon. Photograph © Jane Hobson.