Plautus was a Roman playwright, working in the 3rd century BC. His plays are believed all to be based on Greek originals of about three hundred years earlier, although not every source has been identified.

The plays are comedies of common people - low lifes, artful slaves, pimps and prostitutes, penniless lovers - and have a good deal of knockabout slapstick. Many formed the basis for later adaptations themselves: The Miser by Molière, The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare and more recently A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum by Stephen Sondheim being excellent examples.

For our production we combined two one-act plays: The Pot of Gold and The Swaggering Soldier. Glory dervives from the Latin word for boast: hence Gold and Glory. The small amount of invention needed to tie the pieces together was kept entirely within the spirit of Plautus. No one could see the joins.

The audio extract above occurs in The Pot of Gold when the wily slave (named Tyndarus in our production), played by Lee Peck, learns about the gold for the first time. Old Euclio, played here by Peter Mair, believes incorrectly that the slave has stolen his gold. Tyndarus is innocent this time but does steal it later. Of course all ends happily.