Morality play

It is late in the fourteenth century, a time of calamity such as few others have been, marked by war, plague and fear of hell-fire. Nicholas Barber, a footloose young cleric, has left his diocese without the Bishop’s leave. He has sung in taverns, he has gambled away his holy relics, he has committed adultery. Now, to compound his sins, he has joined a troupe of travelling players, a thing expressly forbidden to members of the clergy. Trouble enough, but nothing compared to what happens when the company decides to enact the murder of the young boy called Thomas Wells.
Morality Play is Barry Unsworth’s first novel since winning the Booker Prize. It is a dark and powerful fable about the masks we wear, the roles we play and the corrupted nature of justice.