Yesterday evening I took myself up to Clifton to see the latest production by our local feminist theatre company, Hecate. Their stated aim is, “to reinvent Classical and Modern theatre with an all-female cast.” The production I saw was of The Frogs by Aristophanes.

You’ll note that word “reinvent” in the aim above. That does not include replacing all of the male characters by women. Most of the characters in Frogs are male. However, the chances are that very few modern theatre-goers know who Euripides and Aeschylus are. So this modern version has replaced them with Will Shakespeare and Jane Austen.

The play is a lot of fun, and being feminists Hecate could not resist making the Bard a bit sexist. Well, quite a lot actually.

There are five actors in the production. All of them take at least one major role, and get to play part of the frog chorus, which seems to have a rather larger part than in the original. I thought Bella Fortune’s Shakespeare was superb, but I was also very impressed with Melissa McCarthy as Charon and Pluto, and Gemma Reynolds’ aging rock star version of Dionysus. And that’s being unfair to Hannah-Marie Chadwick (Xanthias) and Maya Grant (Austen), who were also very good.

Sadly the play is only on for a few days. Saturday is the last night. Catch it if you can.

Ribbit.