A hard day’s knight: How A Knight’s Tale musical created jousting on stage

“But how are they going to do the jousting on stage?”

It’s the question everyone was asking when A Knight’s Tale the Musical announced its world premiere in Manchester for next month. And it wasn’t just WhatsOnStage readers and commenters. It was the director, the choreographer, and the cast.

“Whenever I told somebody I had got the part, it was their number one question,” Andrew Coshan, a life-long fan of the film who’s playing William Thatcher (famously portrayed by Heath Ledger on screen), laughs. “How are you doing the horses?!”

“Because it is a film about jousting, people have to be on horseback and joust, and how do you do that on stage?”

He didn’t get the answers until rehearsals began – though we’re sure it must have to be stipulated somewhere in his contract.

Coshan observes: “On film, they could use real horses and equipment and slow motion cameras to make it look and feel as epic as possible.” Whereas on stage, they are required to bare all themselves – quite literally, if the opening scene is faithful to the film.

“In the show, everything has been heightened. We’ve turned everything up,” he adds.

For WhatsOnStage Award-winning choreographer Matt Cole, it’s this that attracted him to the job: “The physical element excited me. I wanted to get involved with – and to work out how to make the jousting and horse riding happen.”

At first, the creative team trialed using a vaulting horse (“It was a bit trundle-y”) and a mechanism that required other cast members to maneuver it. Ultimately, however, “We wanted the knights who were jousting to move at varying speed and independently,” Cole explains, having transitioned from Newsies to knights.

The solution, which we were privy to seeing in rehearsals, is stilts – which you can see in action below:

“It’s very physically demanding,” director Rachel Kavanaugh explains.

Jay Saighal, who plays Prince Edward, elaborates: “Because of the way we’re doing the horses, my shins are feeling it just a tad!” He laughs, explaining that sponge has been involved in making it feel a bit more comfortable and to sustain the performance.

I notice that the cast are all wearing Dr Martens boots, some knee-high, others thigh-high, and I ask how the blisters are doing. Fortunately, that seems to be less of an issue.

In rehearsals, you wouldn’t know there’s any difficulty at all. It takes a lot of work to make things look as effortless as the cast of A Knight’s Tale do.

Everything is being kept rather coy. They present two six-minute long numbers: one to Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need A Hero” and another to S Club 7’s “Reach”, and there’s zero chance of finding out the names of any other numbers or how the staging will present itself – aside from the fact the band are on stage. Even the props have been hidden. We’re assured it’s worth the trip to Manchester to fully experience.

“We are in a world where we can hold a handheld mic and joust,” Kavanaugh says, praising Brona C Titley’s adaptation. “I already loved the film, but I thought she had done an amazing pass at it – to use a jousting metaphor – where she had injected it with a contemporary sensibility and an extra sprinkle of silliness. It just felt irresistible, and the type of theatre I love to make.”

It’s the energy – and the excitement – of a modern take on the medieval world and sport coming to play that carries the first look of A Knight’s Tale.

In addition, Saighal adds, “We have some huge set pieces which are going to be very impressive. We’re bringing in big, brash, musical numbers that everyone will know. There’s an electricity coming off the live band.

“You can feel the energy come off the stage, and the songs and movement give us that energy to work with. As an actor, it is just a gift.”

A Knight’s Tale the Musical runs at Manchester Palace Theatre from 11 April to 10 May 2025, with tickets on sale below.