Little Lark of London

“Choose your own narrative, build your own story, learn the hidden secrets of a tale well trodden, as we find out what happens when man dares to play God”

Note: This review contains some spoilers for Frankenstein: An Immersive Show

From the moment Frankenstein: An Immersive Show begins, one can tell that it is going to be quite a different adaptation compared to Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein. Audiences descend down the stairs into The Crypt and are greeted with a tavern-like atmosphere, with women dancing and men seated and chatting. The show begins with a sea shanty version of a modern song, which quickly took me out of the creepy vibe that had been established. Captain Robert Walden, played by Director Nicholas Benjamin, is looking for people to join his voyage and finds Victor Frankenstein (Miles Blanch). Victor agrees to journey with Walden if he will listen to his tale, and the story takes off from there.

The audience is brought “into the memories of Victor Frankenstein,” seeing the majority of the performance through his perspective, though at times other characters have interactions without him. The titular Frankenstein family takes centre stage, with most of the scenes taking place in their household. I found myself drawn to the dynamics between Caroline Frankenstein (Nadia Lamin) and her son, William (Piers Mackenzie), as well as Henry Clerval (Michael McGarry), who in this version of the work acts as Victor’s cousin. 

Something that I enjoy doing in immersive performances is observing the minor characters when the main characters are not in the room, which ended up being one of the highlights of Frankenstein. While Victor was having an argument with his father, Alphonse (Harry Harding), that could be heard through the walls, I was in a room with Caroline, William and Henry preparing for a party, with William passing out grapes and Caroline instructing us on where to hang up decorations. We played charades and there was a hilarious moment in which William is rolled up in the carpet, interrupted by Victor entering the room. By following the younger Frankenstein brother, I rarely saw Victor’s love, Elizabeth Lavenza (Niamh Handley-Vaughan), which made her scenes a bit less impactful than they could have been.

One of the main differences between Frankenstein: An Immersive Show and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that Midnight Circle Theatre Company makes the choice to have Victor use the corpse of his own mother, Caroline, to create the Creature. This fits in with the focus on the Frankenstein family and makes the death of William at the Creature’s hands even more heartbreaking, but takes away some of the more impactful moments of the original novel, including the Creature’s attempts to fit in with humans and find acceptance with a family. 

In an interesting choice, there are many times in which all of the audience members are sent to a particular room, unable to choose where to go and being stuck in a cramped room. This was frustrating at times as I would have loved the opportunity to go into some of the other rooms and explore the props including dozens of books in Victor’s workspace, letters in the Frankenstein’s parlour, and a makeshift jail. It was sometimes strange to have Captain Walden be watching over the doors of the rooms, ensuring that audience members were in the right place at the right time. 

A highlight of the show is the movements of the Creature, especially when she is first “reborn” and learns how to move. Chris Evans has choreographed some haunting pieces of work, with the impact only slightly taken away by audience members having to jump out of the way of frantic movements by Lamin and others. There is a particularly stunning moment of choreography in which the other cast members “puppet” the Creature’s body, forcing it to take its first steps and teaching it to move before releasing their hold. Lamin does a brilliant job as the Creature as a whole, transforming from the lovely Caroline Frankenstein to a being that struggles in discovering its purpose and learns how to become more human-like. 

The deaths within the show are incredibly dramatic and tend to veer away from how they happen in the original novel in order to make Victor more responsible, which takes away from the guilt that the Creature learns to feel. The ending of Frankenstein: An Immersive Show is not as impactful as it could have been, as Victor fails to learn from his mistakes and the Creature becomes solely focused on revenge with no mercy for the man who created her. 

Ultimately, Frankenstein: An Immersive Show has an interesting concept and a fantastic cast, but the show itself fails to capture the terror of the original work and leaves the audience a bit frustrated at being in crowded rooms. I hope that Midnight Circle Theatre Company has the opportunity to take this show’s potential and turn it into something truly immersive and terrifying. 

Frankenstein: An Immersive Show runs at The Crypt from 3 to 14 October. The show is non-seated and runs for 1 hour and 25 minutes with no interval. Tickets can be purchased here.

Photo Credit: Roj Whitelock