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


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.