Will I love Morality Play?

I fell deeply in love with Unsworth’s prose style and the striking use of “the play’s the thing” twist as Nicholas Barber and his travelling troupe try to solve a mystery.

As a medievalist, I was impressed with the depth of research that went into the production of the work. Nicholas is a wonderfully flawed character, and I found myself cheering as he left his tedious role to join the troupe.

I always enjoy Unsworth’s work because the plot, while tight and well-focused, is really an excuse to examine social issues and group dynamics.

This is another book I come… show more.

In the plague years of 14th century England, a young runaway priest, Nicholas Barber, hides himself by joining a troupe of traveling players and thereby finds himself a new role in a wider world. Nicholas’s story begins at an inflection point, when the residents in a particular town are more interested in an actual crime of murder than in seeing yet another iteration of the traditional religious Morality play. To captivate and keep their audience, the actors—with Nicholas now one of them—create a play of real life about the town’s murder. Their drama evolves in a series of performances… show more.

Evocative, engaging, and clever, if, on occasion, desperately bleak. This is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of plague in the north of England. Although very well researched the book carries some of the hallmarks of contemporary fiction and so avoids many of the stereotypes (and irritations) of historical novels. Sometimes fiction can be as effective as ‘fact’ in showing the fate of individuals caught up in moments of revolutionary change.