The Frankenstein legacy lives on to this day, but why? What is it that we, a modern audience, love about this classic horror? In the relaxed setting of the Lucy Cavendish College bar, I met with Tamara Micner and Georgia Hume, respectively the writer and director of the upcoming ADC lateshow Fantasmagoriana to find out.

Is Frankenstein still as fresh now as it once was? Or did you find it needed modernising to some degree?

We think it is very relevant still, both the story and its back-story. This month's sold-out run of Danny Boyle's Frankenstein at the National Theatre testifies to people’s continued fascination. In these uncertain times, with a horrible economy, people are looking to the dark and the gothic and we’re really playing with that.

Figures like Lord Byron and Mary Shelley still hold a mystique, so people will always be interested in new stories about known stories. What were these people like and how did they create something which has become infamous?

We think the story is relatable to Cambridge students, not only for the high pressure environment but for the competition and the incest among friends – it’s a group of high-achieving creative people all together, and out of this environment comes something that people here know a lot about

What would you say drew you to the prehistory of Frankenstein, rather than the story itself?

In Mary Shelly’s preface, she alludes to this scenario, and once we researched it a bit more, we realised that this is a scenario for a play… You have Lord Byron, his lover, Mary and Percy Shelly, Mary’s step sister, cooped up in a villa in a rainy summer and all kinds of tensions and rivalries arise…

This production is intended as a comedy; how do you intend to integrate the idea of the growth of a monster into a comedy?

One of the things about this story is the double-edged sword of creation, or even almost any action – anything you do could have any number of unknown consequences, which is what happens in Frankenstein. One of Mary’s concerns over the course of the play is how can she become comfortable with creating something, while she cannot trust herself completely to do so.

It is a comedy, but it’s also quite dark. Much of the humour is implicit and mixed in with a number of dark moments. If you think about what it would have been like with these five figures, they would have been sitting around joking as well as contemplating their work.

In terms of transferring the script onto the stage – having an appropriately modern tone while retaining the older message – how much of a challenge was it to integrate this onto stage?

As the script is quite a hybrid, we went for a period set design and costume, because they’re the kind of things people would expect to see in the 19th Century setting (1816), but at the same time, it still keeps a very contemporary feel – the kind of conversations groups of friends will have in a competitive creative environment will always be the same.

 

'Fantasmagoriana' will be running as the ADC Lateshow from March 2nd – March 5th. You may have seen adaptations of Frankenstein before, but this show certainly holds its own. There will be a full run in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as the run in Cambridge.