Customer Reviews
Disappointing and oddly unengaging - By: John Hopper, 13 Nov 2007 
I was rather disappointed by this. The author takes great care to describe the details of the lives & performances of the Medieval players, but for me the story never reallly caught fire & I did not find myself interested in any of the characters. Bit of a slog, despite being a short novel & firmly within an area of my interest.
A good read - not great - By: , 01 Aug 2005 I found the concept behind this book more exciting than the execution, unfortunately.
While the writing is above reproach, the book suffers due to the lack of length. All characters besides Nicholas are sketched out with the minimum of strokes, (in particular Margaret, the only female character in the group of players) & the events of the book seem to hurtle along to what I felt was a dissatisfing ending, with a hint of deus ex machina.
A good book to pass away a sunday evening, but for a more involving mediaeval murder mystery, go for Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.
An insightful and captivating drama - By: , 11 Dec 2000 
The characters are brilliant & colorful. The time is one of famine & havoc during the 14th century, when a young preist fleeing from his sub-deaconship comes upon a group of travelling players. Nicholas Barber is his name & he tells his story of becoming a player. The death of one player is what prompts Nicholas to join & another could lead to his own. The troupe is on their way to Durham, England where they are promised as a gift from their partron lord. During their travels they come upon a town where they can bury their friend & replenish their purse but when they arrive they learn of another death. The murder of a young boy & the swift conviction of a young women. When the group decides to perform the play of the murder they are in for a wild ride. They do not know the whole truth but are determined to seek it out. "Morality Play" is a captivating drama that relates to many prime topics of the day despite the setting in the middle ages. It is worth the short time it takes to read.
You'll finish it in one sitting - By: , 18 Jul 2000 Perfect: plainly written, not too long & absolutely fascinating. Buy & read this book now.
Brilliantly written, authoritatively researched - By: , 30 Jun 1999 With impeccable research, & without a single inappropriate archaism or self-conscious "mediaevalism" Unsworth, with great subtlety, catches the spirit of the times. The images of death & corruption (both of body & soul) mirror the social, moral & spiritual collapse of mid-14th century England: the Black Death has literallly halved the population, land has gone out of cultivation, labour is scarce, prices have risen, people are starving. The feudal system is disintegrating, hastened by the social & economic consequences of the Hundred Years' War. The colourful pageantry of the Christmas jousting masks the debasement of the chivalric code into greed, selfishness & brutality; the purity of the monastic ideal has been replaced by materialism & venality. No wonder there is an upsurge of millenarian sects prophesying the Last Days. The transition of drama from religious to secular is already in process, & Martin takes his players in a visionary & shocking leap forward, fusing the old Mystery Plays with the newer Morality Plays, & for the first time using real events & real people in his True Play of Thomas Wells. The process of detection & the build-up of tension are brilliantly handled; the language, techniques & traditions of mediaeval drama fascinatingly described. Though we can see where the story is leading, the denouement has enough surprises to be satisfying. Though you could read it just as a mediaeval whodunit, you would be missing a great deal. Don't be deceived by its 188 pages. This is a deep & many-layered book - increasingly rewarding with every reading.
