Simon Callow in Juvenalia

There's "nothing for free in Rome" complains Juvenal. It's likely that celebrated Roman satirist would have a thing or two to say about a performance of his work costing £20.

Thing or two, who are we kidding? Juvenal would never limit himself to saying just two things. It would be at least a dozen things, and most of them unrepeatable.

Simon Callow's Juvenal vigorously advocating male lovers raises a few titters in the audience. But then so does the recurring misogynistic ire. Women are avaricious, lustful, untrustworthy. The stuff is vile. Does the passage of two thousand years mitigate everyday sexism?

Not that Juvenal got everything wrong. "Unbroken nights," he writes, "are a rich man's privilege." All those festival-goers sharing rooms/beds/a roll of memory foam will know what he means. They probably wouldn't agree, however, that poets reciting their work in August are a greater evil than collapsing tenement buildings.

Is Callow worth the long queue and the high price? Depends how flush you're feeling. He held my attention and gave me that smug the-past-isn't-as-different-as-we'd-like-to-think feeling, to which end the set designers place a Fringe programme alongside Roman iconography.

Callow ends with Juvenal's list of life's desirable things (other than pretty young boys). The first being mens sana in corpore sano. After this performance the audience may know nothing about the health of Juvenal's body but can be pretty certain he had a pretty sick mind.