The Canterbury Tales is a series of six single dramas that originally aired on BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 in 2003. Each story is an adaptation of one of Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

's 14th century Canterbury Tales which are transferred to a modern, 21st century setting, but still set along the traditional Pilgrims' route to Canterbury.

Repeats of the series in the UK have been on channels including ITV3

ITV3

ITV3 is an entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom that is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. The channel was launched on 1 November 2004. ITV3 is the second largest UK multi-channel, second only to ITV2.-History:...

.

Production

The anthology series

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 was conceived by executive producers Laura Mackie and Franc Roddam in 2001, and produced by Kate Bartlett, while a number of writers and directors were chosen specifically to work on individual episodes.

Bartlett said of the productions that:

I wanted to be as faithful to the stories and spirit of the Tales as possible and we have tried to achieve that. ... They had to appeal to those more familiar with Chaucer but also work in their own right as single films, to an audience unfamiliar with Chaucer, and this was important to all of us.

Episodes

From Chaucer's original collection, the producers chose six tales:

#	Title	Starring	Directed by	Written by	Original airdate	Viewers

Awards and nominations

On the 29 March 2004 The Wife of Bath was nominated for three awards at the British Academy Television Awards

British Academy Television Awards

The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

, for Best Single Drama, Best Actress

BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role

Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognise an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.- Winners and nominees :...

for Julie Walters and Best Costume Design. Walters went on to win the award.