Found in Translation Theatre Company’s Leave. To Remain is a farcical dystopia of near-future Brexit Britain and its relationship with the continent, with a storyline imaginatively adapted from a classical Athenian comedy, Aristophanes’ The Acharnians. First produced in 425 BC during a brief, capricious truce – more of a pause to regroup, really – between Athens and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League, it satirised the war-hungry, revenge-seeking, populist leaders of a battered city-state.

Themes and plot-points from the original play were cleverly reimagined for a modern setting using a cast of six with rapid costume changes to perform all the parts. Dikaiopolis the merry pacifist who obtains a personal peace-treaty with Sparta is transformed into Dick Goodtown, a disillusioned late-comer to the Remain movement who seeks private membership of the EU. The chorus of bloodthirsty charcoal-burners from the Acharnae district is turned into a mob of angry Leavers who catch a whiff of treason against the will of the people.

Meanwhile, we, the audience, are the studio audience in the UK’s new TV-powered democratic tool, ‘Vote Night’. This is Athenian direct democracy with a 2018 twist – just press the red button on your remote to cast your vote! A comedic highlight is a political debate in rhyming verse between Mr Goodtown and a pint-wielding, immigrant-bashing Nigel Farage. The play also cleverly breaks the fourth wall – in a slightly different place than Aristophanes did, but very apropos given the misogyny of ancient Greece and today’s #MeToo movement. One might wonder if an underlying assumption that the motivation behind every Leave vote can be reduced to blind xenophobia might have alienated any Leave voters present in the audience.

As it turned out, a large proportion of the audience for last night’s performance at the Cheney School were not even old enough to vote. The play was hosted by the Iris Project, a laudable initiative to bring classical education to children and young people from all backgrounds; their upcoming events include a Hogwarts-themed classics summer school, also at Cheney. Other venues for Leave. To Remain include the Camden Fringe, and the production will be making its way to the Edinburgh Fringe.

A challenge with Greco-Roman comedy is that is ostensibly high-brow but at its heart pretty low-brow and risqué. The quick one-liners, hilarious cultural references and an impressive array of exaggerated accents made for a very enjoyable performance, though some of the NSFW jokes made us cringe given the younger members of the audience. An additional challenge with classical comedy is the slightly different format of the plot arc, where the resolution happens more towards the middle of the play, contrary to modern expectations that it should happen near the end. I know my viewing partner found this aspect bewildering, and one could question whether director Ollie Harrington could have done more to help the audience navigate the second half of the performance.

Nonetheless, I for one would certainly want to be in the audience for Found in Translation’s next comedy adaptation!