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Aristophanes

May 2025

  • The Frogs at the Southwark Playhouse.

    ‘Please don’t fart, this is art’ – Stephen Sondheim’s musical The Frogs review

    A droll Dionysos, an ab-obsessed himbo and a waddling ballet for goggle-clad frogs can’t outshine Sondheim’s songs in this rarely seen version of the ancient Greek satire

January 2024

  • Toby Park and Aitor Basauri in The Frogs

    The Frogs review – Spymonkey’s fun Aristophanes update

  • Toby Park in a toga, gesturing and laughing, next to Aitor Basauri in a cloak, standing on a boat with an oar, with mist on the stage and a picture of the moon in The Frogs

    The Frogs review – Spymonkey’s search for ancient comedy and catharsis

February 2021

  • A scene from Birds (Or How to Be One) by Babis Makridis.

    Birds (Or How to Be One) review – flighty avian-themed drama-doc

    Babis Makridis takes to the sky with an experimental and sometimes difficult to watch manifesto inspired by Aristophanes’s play The Birds

August 2020

  • An indomitable spirit ... Vicky Stavropoulou as Lysistrata.

    Lysistrata review – ancient theatre lends magic to war-of-the-sexes comedy

    It’s hard to fault the atmospheric venue or the acting, but this deconstructed version of Aristophanes’ radical comedy lacks coherence

September 2018

  • Women In Power Production Photos ©The Other Richard

    Women in Power review – rude, raucous reboot of radical Greek comedy

    Aristophanes’ neglected classic The Assemblywomen, which proposes economic and sexual communism – is given an uneven musical update

March 2017

  • George Rae (Xanthias) and Michael Matus (Dionysos) in The Frogs

    The Frogs review – Nathan Lane's larky update of Sondheim musical

    Funny things happen on the way to Hades in this enjoyable version of Aristophanes’ civic-minded comedy about the function of art

September 2015

  • Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet, Joanna Lumley in The Cherry Orchard and Mark Rylance in Jerusalem

    From Oedipus to The History Boys: Michael Billington's 101 greatest plays

    In his new book, the Guardian’s theatre critic has selected what he thinks are the 101 greatest plays ever written, in any language – so do you agree?

June 2013

  • Socrates and His Clouds

    Women in Parliament/Socrates and His Clouds – review

    Two updates of Aristophanes prove the importance of recapturing the originals' bawdy exuberance, writes Michael Billington

July 2011

  • The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer – review

    It's not quite Aristophanes, but a sex-strike comedy does make some serious points. By Carrie O'Grady

February 2011

  • Lysistrata

    Shortcuts
    Do sex strikes ever work?

  • Cinematic myths and historical facts

September 2010

  • Colin Austin.

    Colin Austin obituary

    One of the world's leading scholars of ancient Greek texts

September 2007

  • A 2,500-year-old sex ban

    Aristophanes' Lysistrata was about the power of women in a time of war. Blake Morrison felt an update was overdue.

September 2002

  • Spiced-up girls

    Chloe Hooper on how Aristophanes adds bite to his politics in the first ever drag act, Lysistrata

July 2002

  • You'll believe a man can fly

    Is The Birds a satire on democracy, a warning against dictatorship - or just a comedy about building castles in the air? Sean O'Brien tells how he tackled Aristophanes.

July 1999

  • What a carry on

    What did we expect? The full title - "Germaine Greer's Lysistrata: The Sex Strike" - implies a radical recasting of Aristophanes. What we actually get is some mild textual tinkering and a determinedly jokey production that transforms the play from sharp moral satire into a genial Carry On Up The Acropolis.

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