The Frankenstein Monster Show
About the Production
This inventive and exuberant play with music brings the Frankenstein story into the computer age. When the young American scientist Frank Enstein first arrives at the Victorian Gothic pile called Enstein Hall, he’s determined to sell the place and use the proceeds and the rest of his inheritance to fund his ambitions in computerised robotic systems. Housekeeper Mrs Body and Igor, still loyal to their dead master, are appalled and in an attempt to persuade the newcomer to change his mind, present him first with the notebook outlining the old master’s experiments, and then show him the laboratory, where lies Boris, the monster, the old master’s finest creation. Frank revives Boris, and is inspired to create more monsters, but ones guided by his own computerised control systems. Two dodgy Irish undertakers, Wille Burke and Willie Hare, and their scheming wife Lucretia Burkenhare (she’s married to both for tax purposes), make a deal with Frank, and soon have ‘raw materials’ problem sorted as they set up a production line. Business booms. But John B. Good, the family solicitor, has his suspicions about the strange goings on an Enstein Hall, and calls on Sherlock Holmes for help. Unfortunately he’s at least sixty years too late, and ends up with Sherlock Holmes Junior, a wheelchair-bound idiot. And then Dr Watson appears. No, not that one. This is Ruby Watson, and thankfully, she’s smart, (and pretty, or at least John thinks so) and now the three investigators head for the Hall to uncover the hideous goings-on and bring them to an end. If they can….
More Munster than Monster, this somewhat ramshackle script rode roughshod over just about every literary device it touched. Burke and Hare were stereotypical ‘Oirish’ idiots. Sherlock Holmes Jnr. was a pompous fool, outsmarted on every level by his companion, Watson. Even the villainous Enstein (with no explanation as to why the monster creator of old has a stately home in England) wasn’t that smart.
However, high points in the production included the donkey-jacketed Willie Hare lifting up tail-coated Willie Burke by the lapels only for them to come off in his hands, generating a profanity laden response from the wearer, and an overly extended dying sequence near to the close resulting in many of the cast, with and without guns, stepping onto the stage and shooting the actor to try and accelerate his demise… definitely not in the script.
The Cast
Behind the Scenes
Image Gallery
The Reviews
Let's Be Frank
The latest in a long line of Christmas productions of a macabre bent, “The Frankenstein Monster Show” is this year’s offering from Theatre Workshop Coulsdon. One has to be honest and say that the script is not very good and the songs not especially tuneful. Still, it’s a reasonably good idea based around the B-movie horror spoof musical seen at its best in “The Rocky Horror Show.”
Chris Argles production seemed undisciplined and under-rehearsed in parts, but this might prove unfair judgement of a first night. The evening I was there, inanimate objects were in rebellion with guns refusing to fire at crucial moments and lighting raising and lowering erratically or not coming on at all.
Richard Lloyd was in good voice as Frank Enstein, an American descendant of the original and a chip off the old block when it comes to re-animation. His plans to build an empire founded on a production line of re-animated humans (as a cheap alternative to robots) are aided and abetted by the faithful retainers of Enstein Hall. Tim Young was all manic subservience as Igor, the hunchbacked manservant, but Lesley Argles’ sensibly dressed housekeeper was not really in keeping with the genre. Boris, the monster, is more laid back than Mary Shelley’s tortured original although with the same pre-occupation for a bride! Simeon Dawes, in superb make-up by Lee Wilkinson, had excellent presence and delivered his songs with style. Maintaining a steady supply of bodies (American tourists prove ideal fodder) falls to Messrs Burke and Hare. Paul Ford and Pete Gregory provided a likeable Irish double act. Vikki Carrington made a sultry siren of their bigamous wife with designs on Frank. The goodies of the piece also have famous ancestors – although what they would have made of Sherlock Holmes Jnr (positively certifiable as played by Tim Warner) and Dr Watson is anybody’s guess. Wendy Cole as the latter and Andy Guilbert as the nice young solicitor provide the love interest and their duet, with its fifties style male vocal backing, was great fun.
Lesley Bacon for The Croydon Advertiser
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