Frankenstein at National Media Museum

NTLive

John Atkinson braves the ghosts and ghouls to visit Bradford’s National Media Museum for a Hallowe’en treat: National Theatre Live’s Frankenstein.

I expected a lot from Frankenstein (cert 15) at National Media Museum. The sell-out National Theatre performance brought together director Danny Boyle and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller (playing Dr Frankenstein and The Creature alternately), and was re-screened thanks to request after request. It didn’t disappoint.

Frankenstein is part of our cultural memory: the book is still popular for study and pleasure, and the films, from Cushing and Karloff’s dark black and whites to kitschy 70s gore-fests, haunt the witching hour of satellite TV stations, providing clips of a monotonous monster which is dripped into all manner of celluloid. In short, I thought I knew Frankenstein. I didn’t.

Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931)
Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931)

The main characters, Dr Victor Frankenstein and his monster (or The Creature as he is named herein), are played wonderfully by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, but, in a twist, they play the characters alternately, so Cumberbatch is Dr Frankenstein and Miller is The Creature one night and they reverse roles the next. The two performances at National Media Museum saw Miller’s Frankenstein on Hallowe’en and Cumberbatch’s on the following Saturday (which is when I went). Having not seen both performances, I don’t know what this brings to the roles but, knowing this, it made me wonder how Cumberbatch could possibly hope to compete with Miller’s gory, guttural, grotesque Creature, and how Miller’s Frankenstein could compare to Cumberbatch’s austere, aloof, arrogant Doctor. What it did do was make me want to see the other version next year.

Danny Boyle is rightly known as the director of modern British, indeed world, cinema, and his Olympic opening ceremony and first line of his epitaph writes cheques only someone of the most supreme talent could hope to cash. He does so – quite easily. The stage is bare from the start but transforms quite beautifully at times, from the townsfolk arriving by train, a Scottish croft rising from the ground, and a farmer’s smallholding appearing from the sky; greater than this, though, is the use of light and water. A multitude of incandescent lights provided a summer’s day, rays of hope and flashes of anger; the water and snow, pouring from the sky, gave The Creature a childlike sensual pleasure previously unimagined.

The opening, a strange, minimalist segment, immediately banishes all the Frankensteins we know and pushes this version to the fore. This Frankenstein is about The Creature – the monster becomes the master. In the preamble, the actors spoke of the writer’s desire to give back the voice robbed from the monster in horror films, and they did so admirably. The Creature is ‘born’, falling limply from a scientific womb, and finds his voice and his legs immediately. The Creature, cut and sewn, stumbles and crawls and drags himself around the stage, guttural noises emanating from his grotesque form… and is banished.

The story remains his. He is shunned and attacked by all who meet him. On his travels, he finds his voice and is able to speak – and to become human. But, inevitably, he must return to his master and confront him. The ensuing tale is deeply dark, and is truly uncomfortable to watch at times. At the end, it made me think about disability, the way I treat people and what is important about a person – the inside or the outside? Moreover, I questioned who was the human and who The Creature; who is the monster in this tale, and are the most monstrous elements those at which The Creature is at his most human?

I’d been taken away from Bradford and transported across seas and years, from small town Switzerland to the shores of Lake Geneva and across to the Scottish islands. I was shaken, stirred and thoroughly entertained. This was a very adult Hallowe’en tale; no saccharine candy offerings, no plastic bats, just a grim and tragic tale of the worst of humanity mirrored by a Creature born of the dark imaginings of man who would be God.

But, after a turbulent two hours, at times heart warming and beautiful, at others darkly disturbing, I was back in the National Media Museum’s Pictureville Cinema, a plush setting with a crystal clear screen and a must for all cinema lovers. National Media Museum is such a perfect place to catch a film, from the latest blockbusters to the finest foreign flicks, and the only place to see the vast IMAX. I’d wondered how a live performance from a stage would play on the big screen – but I needn’t have. The camerawork is thoughtful and captures the actors’ and director’s intentions excellently, and I’ll certainly be back to see more National Theatre Live productions.