Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions are convenient and concise volumes that are building up an extensive list, and with the major plays covered, we are now reaching some less-read plays such as Plautus’ Trinummus. Jeppesen assumes that readers are coming to this work for the first time and therefore expects no previous knowledge or familiarity. As it is likely that students on non-linguistic courses or perhaps theatre practitioners thinking about performance will be among the target audience for these introductory volumes, it is noticeable that it does not list recent translations in the bibliography. Some discussion of the merits of different versions (perhaps in different languages and traditions) would be helpful in order to show their relative popularity, and they may shed light on the original text.

Jeppesen approaches this relatively neglected comedy of Plautus Trinummus with considerable gusto and enthusiasm. He opens with an account of a second century BCE Roman festival (ludi Romani) and gives a lively picture of what it might have been like to have actually been there. He firmly believes that Plautus is funny and should be enjoyed by an audience, and does his best to transmit this to his readership. However, clearly assuming an anglophone readership, he does this with a highly colloquial style of writing, often in American idiom, including lots of jokes and puns, which perhaps recalls the lecture theatre or classroom, and assumes a familiarity with modern types of comic performance. He refers to ‘sitcom’, ‘shtick’, and ‘improv’ without much further explanation. The reference to ‘improv’ as a shortened form of ‘improvisation’ (a precise form of stand-up comedy where performers appear, though they are usually well-prepared, to make up their material as they go along, as they engage with the audience and take prompts and suggestions from them) is a good insight into Plautine performance and does much to help us imagine how a show of Plautus might have sounded and looked to the public.

His interpretation is always firmly based on comic performance and the appearance of the characters on stage. He is very good on the stock characters who make up the cast list and the way to read them, making the point that they are not to be taken too seriously and may sometimes be parodies of themselves. The audience should recognise that the character is being sent up or mocked for what they represent: even the sententiae they utter (and there are many of them in Trinummus, helpfully listed in an appendix) should be taken in a sense of parody as the humour lies in their absurdity and pointlessness rather than in their actual wisdom.

Although Jeppesen’s references tend to be centred on anglophone culture, he does, however, discuss many of the Latin words used in the text to elucidate the performance, often single words but also longer phrases that are always translated and explained for students on non-linguistic courses, who should not feel excluded by their lack of Latin but who are being introduced to the flavour of the original words used. He is particularly good on the meaning and effect of some of the names of various characters (pages 126–127). He examines the Romanness of Plautus, showing how he transforms the Greek originals into works that are truly Roman in their flavour and culture, perhaps in the same way that Tom Stoppard transforms some Viennese plays of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries into his own creations, such as Schnitzler’s Das Weite Land (1911), which becomes Stoppard’s Undiscovered Country.

Reception of this relatively underperformed play is limited, but an account of its performance history at Westminster School is included. This independent school in London has a tradition of performing a Latin play each year, and Trinummus was part of the list of approved plays in the second half of the 19th century. This may have been because its content was regarded as more suitable for performance in school than that of some of Plautus’ other plays. Jeppesen has gone deeply into the school’s archives and sets out a rich account and includes several images of productions. Wider reception of Plautine comedy is noted in the frequent references to contemporary comedy (such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian), which illuminate the text rather than refer directly to it.

Jeppesen wants us to appreciate the comedy in Plautus, which he makes clear can only really be appreciated through performance and not through just reading the text off the page. His references and comparisons to contemporary comic techniques and performers help readers of the texts (as long as they are familiar with them) to imagine actually being at a show in the ancient world. Teachers of Classical Civilisation and Latin courses will principally find this book useful, but it can also be recommended for English and drama courses. In fact, anyone interested in the origin and practice of comedy would profit from reading specific chapters and sections as a general introduction to Roman comedy as a whole. Though he spends quite a lot of time apologising for the play, arguing that it is much more entertaining than some critics have given it credit for in the past, he makes a good case for it and at the same time presents a lively account of Roman comedy that can be read with profit even by those unfamiliar with this play.