A pilgrimage into the 21st century

One sometimes hears it said, in order to assert that what appears to be the collapse of civilization is in reality progress, that if Mozart were alive today he’d be writing Broadway musicals, and Rembrandt drawing comics, and Shakespeare writing sitcoms, and so on.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who would be around 660 years old if he were alive today, might or might not be writing hourlong programs for the BBC, but the BBC -- following the suggestion of executive producer Franc Roddam, the director of the movie “Quadrophenia” -- has gone ahead as if he were, adapting six of his “Canterbury Tales” for broadcast, giving them a fresh coat of paint and a modern setting. BBC America is showing four of them here, on consecutive Saturdays beginning tomorrow night, and perhaps if we’re good they’ll eventually let us see the other two.

The various adapters (a different screenwriter for each story) have, naturally, added some additional business in order to make the stories work in a dramatic and contemporary way. But living authors have seen their work turned into films that have much less to do with their originals than do these. Chaucer was, of course, writing in a different context -- more for his time than for the ages -- but though the social meanings of various human impulses and aspirations have changed, the impulses and aspirations have not. And except for tonight’s opener, “The Wife of Bath,” which (Chaucer fans will note) conflates the wife’s prologue with the tale she subsequently tells, are remarkably faithful to the original plots and themes. The 14th century has something to say to the 21st about love, honor, friendship, betrayal and flatulence.

As re-imagined by Sally Wainwright, who also penned the BBC’s “Sparkhouse,” a role-reversing update of “Wuthering Heights,” “The Wife of Bath” becomes the story of a middle-aged TV actress who takes up with her 22-year-old costar when her husband leaves her. (I can tell you, as something of an expert on this subject, that there was no television in Chaucer’s day -- not sure about Shakespeare’s.) It “improves” the ending but hits the original’s main points about youth, age, beauty, equality and sex (having it, lots of it -- or as Chaucer wrote, “And Jhesu Crist us sende Housbondes meeke, yonge, and fressh abedde,” not exactly the sort of prayer you hear on “The 700 Club”).

It is the weakest of the four installments but has the biggest star, Julie Walters (“Educating Rita”), along with the great and seemingly ubiquitous Bill Nighy (best known probably for his dissolute ex-rock star in “Love, Actually”), who also appears this weekend in Sunday’s Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s “He Knew He Was Right.”

Better is “The Knight’s Tale,” scripted by Tony Marchant, a love triangle involving two prisoners and the woman they both love. Shifting the action from a tower in olde Athens to a prison in modern London, it doesn’t completely convince but features some marvelous performances, especially from John Simm, who played New Order’s Bernard Sumner in “24 Hour Party People” and was seen on BBC America last year in the fine political thriller “State of Play,” along with -- wait for it -- Bill Nighy.

The two installments not to miss are Peter Bowker’s version of “The Miller’s Tale” (Jan. 29) and Avie Luthra’s “The Sea Captain’s Tale” (Jan. 15), both directed by John McKay (“Crush”) and brightly photographed by Tim Palmer. The first, the only of the four to capture Chaucer’s knockabout side, is a kind of traveling-salesman story involving an old landlord, his young wife and their slick young boarder. It’s set in a B&B; in Kent, makes extensive use of karaoke and features a superbly cocky James Nesbitt and former teen-pop singer Billie Piper. “The Sea Captain’s Tale,” which is a kind of dark mirror “The Miller’s Tale,” brilliantly crosses Chaucer with James M. Cain in a modern film noir set among the wealthy Asian community in Gravesend: a rich man (Indian superstar Om Puri), his beautiful spendthrift wife, his ambitious young friend. You can do the math, and if you can’t, you need to see more movies.

*

‘The Canterbury Tales -- The Wife of Bath’

Where: BBC America

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

Julie Walters...Beth Craddock

Paul Nicholls...Jerome

Bill Nighy...James

Writer Sally Wainwright. Director Andy De Emmony. Producer Kate Bartlett.