Many Friends will be familiar with the plot and characters of Alexander Dumas’ historical romances first serialised in 1844. The many adaptations, films, TV shows and even cartoons like my own 1980s favourite Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds mean the characters of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and their sidekick d’Artagnan, are well recognised. They are inseparable friends who live by the motto ‘all for one, one for all!’ Their motto leads them to indulge in fighting, drinking and other activities that could be described as un-Quakerly when practised casually!


There might seem little here to attract a Quaker audience to the Traverse Theatre Company, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and English Touring Theatre presentation of The Three Musketeers and The Princess of Spain. This recently premiered in Coventry and starts a national tour that includes The Richmond Theatre, The York Theatre Royal and The Traverse in Edinburgh. So why were twenty Coventry Friends drawn to see the play?

Chris Hannan, a Scottish writer, created this version and is an attender at Coventry Meeting. Hence our enthusiasm to see Chris’s latest work.

He says: ‘What we love about the musketeers is their spirit – all for one and one for all! You can change everything else and have a completely different story, so long as you are true to that. The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain re-creates the spirit of the original book on stage and aims to entertain people of different ages in the way that programmes like Doctor Who, Harry Potter and some animated films manage to do.’

In this re-imagining of the plot, a yokel, d’Artagnan, goes on a magical quest rescuing a princess, a baby, his sweetheart, the seedy, post-modern, run-down three Musketeers along with his true self, fighting and evading on the way the evil cardinal along with his guards, a huge baby-eating bi-polar monster, terrifying dogs and weird birds. Phantom pregnancy, an unmarried mother and a nappy-changing royal all feature strongly. A politician lectures us on the necessity of effective exercise of power at the expense of the poor.

Chris’s script is in turns romantic, swashbuckling, radical, scatological and frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The production is hugely theatrical. Song, dance, swordfights, brawls, puppetry, stilts and special effects scares and shocks are thrown at the audience with abandon. The cast play with huge enthusiasm. The production would make a fantastic introduction for newcomers to live theatre.

The show really worked for our group of Quakers, particularly for the four young Friends who came. Younger audience members particularly enjoyed the on stage flatulence, gore and sense of menace. Note that Chris and the theatre publicity caution that the play is suitable only for audience members of at least eight years old, a view with which I concur.

The show is touring from now through to the Christmas theatre season. It has many elements of panto, often inverted or subverted, and many moving Christmassy scenes and even contains explicit snow effects!

In terms of spiritual content I was moved to reflect on Chris Hannan’s Roman Catholic background in the presentation of a cardinal who has forbidden any expression of joy or the natural world. I asked Chris to what extent his association with Quakerism was reflected in the script. Chris turned the question around asking me if I could see elements in the script that show the reasons why Quakerism is attractive to him. I could – can you?