Woman in Power continues the Nuffield City Southampton opening season programming with another new work. Written in parts by seven women it is based on the Greek comedy Assembly Women by Aristophanes. The writers are poet Wendy Cope, comics Jenny Eclair, Shappi Khorsandi and Brona Titley, broadcaster Natalie Hayes, playwright Suhayla El Bushra and MP Jess Phillips. The end result is a broad rude comedy which draws from 20th century Music hall and musical theatre traditions and is set in 391BC, "or as we like to say, the present day".
The original was written at time when the women were not allowed in the Assembly or to vote and was a topical comic criticism of the male leadership and governance . The opening acts, Act 1 "Strategy" and Act 2 "What men think" , follow the original play structure as the women plan to enter the assembly disguised as men to swing the vote by the oratory of their leader (Lydia Rose Bewley) to put women in power and then come under suspicion from their husbands for their absence from home. The later acts explore the consequences of their actions.
