Benedict Cumberbatch plays a monster made of reanimated body parts in the National Theatre at Home production of Frankenstein.
Listen to Dan Slevin's review
Dan Slevin: With all this enforced domestic time on our hands we have an opportunity to try something a bit different.
Launched without fanfare last year, the UK's Royal National Theatre have put a rolling selection of their famous NT Live televised theatre productions online for all to see.
Originally meant for live screening in cinemas - simultaneous with the actual performance from the South Bank in London and with additional replay screenings - it was always imagined that these productions would never be available at home. The rights issues and the extra cost of paying the performers always seemed insurmountable, not to mention the fact that having so much great theatre available at your fingertips might actually cannibalise the market for the real thing.
But then Covid came along and theatres around the world had to close. Companies like the National were forced to pivot to something different in order to survive the crisis.
We've watched a couple of productions in the last few weeks and will continue to dip in as new shows are added: the multi-award-winning 2017 production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America which starred Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane was the first, a show which also transferred to Broadway in 2018.
And last week we watched Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in Nick Dear's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I could have sworn it was only five years since that production screened in cinemas so imagine my surprise to discover that it is the tenth anniversary this year.
The conceit of this production - at least one conceit of many - is that Cumberbatch and Miller both performed the lead roles of Frankenstein the scientist and Frankenstein's Monster the monster, swapping at alternate performances. We watched the Cumberbatch as Monster version, but both are available and there's an opportunity there for educators as well as theatre professionals to compare and contrast the two approaches.
If you haven't seen subsidised British theatre in its pomp, you will be amazed at the production values on display in this show. The giant Olivier Theatre has a size and scale that in New Zealand we normally devote to public car parking buildings.
What I can only describe as a corkscrew revolving stage with huge set elements rising up from the floor as the stage spins; and all the elements feature on stage - earth, fire, water. The design by Mark Tildesley and costumes by Sattirat Anne Larlarb have a steampunk aesthetic which was in vogue at the time but looks slightly out of date now.
The plot hews pretty closely to Mary Shelley's novel. Victor Frankenstein, obsessed with the electrochemical properties of life, constructs a creature from scavenged body parts and manages to awaken it. Horrified by what he has made, Frankenstein abandons the creature who is forced to learn the ways of men while at the same time being scorned and despised by them.
But he is a quick learner and after a year living with a blind philosopher in the Swiss mountains - a sojourn that does not end well - the Creature determines to go to Geneva and reckon with his creator, and bargain for a companion. This also does not go well.
This production is directed by Danny Boyle, who at the time, was on top of the world after his Best Directing Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire and was about to start work on arguably the greatest theatrical event that London would ever see - the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics.
I've always found it hard to warm to Benedict Cumberbatch, to suspend my disbelief, and this production is no different. He's a head actor, I think, I've always felt like I can see the wheels turning in his noggin, but this performance demands a loose-limbed physicality that I'm not sure he fully relaxes into. Heavily made up with the suture scars all over his body, he shows the physical and cognitive development of the creature well enough but I sensed the decision making at every turn.
Miller as Victor Frankenstein is excellent though - despite the character being one-note dislikeable - but the most conventionally natural performance is from Naomie Harris as his doomed fiancée, Elizabeth. That wasn't a spoiler by the way, it's Frankenstein, they're all doomed.
Frankenstein doesn't have a classification or rating on the NT Live site but suffice to say that the content is aimed at older viewers. A monthly subscription costs $18.95 so it's up there in terms of cost but there's nothing like it anywhere else. Also, currently available to watch at NTAtHome.com are productions of classics like All My Sons, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Three Sisters so there's plenty for the theatre mad members of your family to enjoy.