BBC Full-Cast productions of some of Aristophanes finest comedies

Aristophanes was a renowned Greek playwright who wrote around 450 BC. He is considered the Father of Comedy or the Prince of Ancient Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today.

Lysistrata -A comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was said to be the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to engage in a sex strike as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace?– a strategy that inflames the battle between the sexes.

The ‘Peace’ - Trygaeus, a middle-aged Athenian, miraculously brings about a peaceful end to the Peloponnesian War, thereby earning the gratitude of farmers while bankrupting various tradesmen who had profited from the hostilities. He celebrates his triumph by marrying Harvest, a companion of Festival and Peace, all of whom he has liberated from a celestial prison.

The Birds - A new version of Aristophanes' fantastic comedy translated and adapted by Martyn Wade. First performed in 414 BC. Two Athenians, fed up with the rat race, opt out and go in search of somewhere better....

The Wasps - This comedy satirized the litigiousness of the Athenians in the person of the mean and waspish old man Philocleon, who has a passion for serving on juries. In Wasps, Philocleon’s son, Bdelycleon, arranges for his father to hold a “court” at home, but, since the first “case” to be heard is that of the house dog accused of the theft of a cheese, Philocleon is finally cured of his passion for the law courts and instead becomes a boastful and uproarious drunkard. The play’s main political target is the exploitation by Cleon of the Athenian system of large subsidized juries

Festival of Women - Based on the play Thesmophoriazusae. The women of Athens gather at the sacred Thesmophoria festival and hold a formal mock-assembly to put the tragic playwright Euripides on trial.

Women in Power (Assembly Women- Ecclesiazusae) - About the year 393 BC, Socrates of Athens was suggesting that there should be women Ministers of State as well as men, and that they should live together at the State's expense having no private property; that therefore wives should be held in common and likewise children; and that communism of women and children would confirm the greatest of all benefits upon the State.

The play invents a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and institute reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive. In addition to Aristophanes' political and social satire, Assemblywomen derives its comedy through sexual and scatological humour. The play aimed to criticize the Athenian government's expropriation of land and wealth at the time.

The Frogs - Is one of Aristophanes's greatest comedies and is justly celebrated for its wit and keen commentary on Athenian politics and society. It follows the god Dionysus on a journey to the underworld to bring a great tragic playwright back to life and save Athens from political ruin during the Peloponnesian War.