Bawdy fun as women turn the tables on men

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Women In Power at the Nuffield Southampton Theatres’ city venue is a new version of Aristophanes‘ Assemblywomen. It sticks pretty closely to the original story in which women take over the government from the weak and incompetent men.

Aristotle was having a go at the male politicians rather than seriously suggesting that women could run things so, while they turn the tables on the men by, for example, making it law that the oldest and least attractive women have first choice of male lover, they also introduce pure communism with disastrous results.

Click here to see the review of Women In Power on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

What’s great about this production is that women are in power on stage and off and they’ve produced a very entertaining show that makes some good points about male and female behaviour. It’s written by seven prominent women- Wendy Cope, Jenny Eclair, Suhayla El-Bushra, Natalie Haynes, Shappi Korshandi, Jess Phillips MP & Brona C Titley. The dramaturg is Clare Slater and it has a cast of six women, directed by Blanche McIntyre.

In effect it’s a series of sketches, and perhaps because it’s the work of so many different hands, some work and some are stilted and clichéd but the ones that work are very funny. I should also say, in the tradition of Aristophanes, it’s also very rude, filthy even. I can’t remember ever seeing someone defecate on stage before and, while the scene goes on a bit too long, it’s cringingly convincing.

There is much fun made of men and their genitalia but also mockery of the women. In one hilarious scene the women vie for a young male’s attention by competing in droopiness and looseness, if you get my drift. In another, Lisa Kerr (whose all round performance skills are very impressive) plays a man who is following the law that he must give up all his possessions. He is persuaded to follow this to its logical conclusion by giving away his clothes, revealing a very funny nude body suit.

The songs which intersperse the production are excellent pastiches of well known musical songs and have uniformly witty lyrics. Whisper it, but they are written by a man Tim Sutton.

Despite the show’s unevenness, Women In Power is well worth seeing.

Women In Power is performing at the Nuffield Southampton until 29 September 2018, then at Oxford Playhouse from 3-6 October.

Here’s the YouTube review of Women In Power on the One Minute Theatre Reviews channel-