I have a confession to make: I don't understand Ancient Greek. Prometheus Bound at Emmanuel College depicts the punishment of Prometheus – who, it transpires, is bound to cliff – as a punishment for, amongst other things, his rash and proud words. To paraphrase, 'it is easy to offer advice or rebuke'. And it it just as easy for Zeus to punish you for it. Naturally, I found this a little off-putting: even in the relatively static environment of a dramatic reading – no effects; no movement; just words – being punished by Zeus did not come across as pleasant. Patrick Boyde's resonant performance admirably conveyed the suffering and the pain of poor Prometheus.

That it was in Greek is the key point. The evening presents a rare opportunity to see Greek drama performed in the original tongue, and should therefore be treasured. The raw, earthy power of Aeschylus does come across well, even to those as unqualified to judge as I. However, reading in Greek also presents some problems. The effort of pronouncing the unfamiliar tongue hindered some of the readers from infusing the performance with a great deal of dramatic power. They were not helped by the large lecterns positioned in front of them, an unfortunately necessary reading aid. Yet Aeschylus did not suffer, and the words still soared, even in the subtitles projected onto a screen.

The dramatic reading of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound – as a kind of unofficial sequel – should have offered more of an opportunity for the readers to perform, given that it was in English. And some of the readers did rise to the occasion: Prometheus (David Frost, wearer of some excellent corduroys) and Panthea (Gail Trimble, of University Challenge and Daily Mail renown) galvanised their lines with particular gusto. Unfortunately, these lines did not seem well-suited to dramatic reading. Perhaps Shelley's poetry is too dense for the stage – or perhaps I am too dense for Shelley's poetry – so the nuance of the verse was difficult to follow. Indeed, at times, the nuance of the plot was difficult to follow.

The main problem, however, was still the stasis of a dramatic reading, which does not sufficiently engage an audience. Even the admirable efforts of violinists Julian Gregory and Josie Robertson – playing music beautifully arranged and adapted by Gregory from Carl Nielson – and the picture display on a screen (a lot of Greek pottery for Aeschylus and Turner for Shelley) could not overcome this problem. The advantage of the reading, though, is that it allows the words themselves to dominate proceedings, and it was a rare pleasure to hear two fine authors read aloud.