ABSTRACT
A man called Jimmie Miller discovered a copy of Aristophanes’ comedies in a secondhand bookshop in Leeds in 1936. Miller was an unemployed motor mechanic turned communist theatre-maker from Salford. Fascism was taking hold across Europe and global war looked ever more likely. In the Theatre Workshop manifesto they were to tell the public: The great theatres of all times have been popular theatres which reflected the dreams and struggles of the people. Theatre Union, by virtue of their strong counter-capitalist and anti-war conviction, rather than any kind of blind subservience to ‘the line’, found themselves on the ‘wrong side of history’. In the creative hands of Theatre Workshop the seams of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata were unpicked and a new play was skilfully woven together, uniting the company’s political vision and world-changing historical events taking place around them.
