★★★

“This production is as cosy as a Sunday afternoon TV period drama”

It is over fifty years since this play was first performed and the celebrity status of its author, John Mortimer, has surely waned. The size of this first night audience, however, suggests that he is still fondly remembered by many.

In a role played in the past by Olivier and Guinness, Rupert Everett triumphantly takes on the role of Father. The blindness, of which he will never speak, comes upon him with a blinding flash and a percussive explosion. From then on, Everett shows brilliantly his lack of sight by fumbling for a teacup, tapping his stick to find his chair, and displaying a disturbing blank stare into nothingness.

Ever by his side is his devoted wife (Eleanor David) whilst the Son – or Boy as his parents call him – is kept mostly at a distance. The primary story is that of the Son, confidently portrayed by Jack Bardoe. Narrated by him, linking scenes that take us through his school years – dressing down into short trousers, blazer and cap – following his father into a career in law and taking his first steps into married life. Of the Father, we see him promenading his garden, inspecting the flowers via a spoken description from whomever is nearest. There is a hit-and-miss running gag about counting earwigs. The Father’s blindness keeps him distant and aloof. He is irascible, prone to outbursts and provocative to those closest to him.

An excellent supporting cast is confidently moved around the stage by director Richard Eyre but the short scenes rarely involve more than a handful of characters at one time. Julian Wadham’s declamatory school Headmaster and Calum Finlay’s school pupil Reigate are cameo performances worthy of mention. Two scenes – both with echoes of wartime – fall somewhat flat. Perhaps the poignancy of one and the humour of the second have been lost to time. Everything lifts again with the arrival of the sparky Elizabeth (Allegra Marland), soon to be married to the Son despite the misgivings of the son’s Father.

The predominantly bare set (designer Bob Crowley) is a beauty. Images of thick green foliage, the sun hazily glinting through the leaves, evokes the halcyon days of summers gone by. This production is as cosy as a Sunday afternoon TV period drama. There is much to be enjoyed, particularly in the performances of Everett and Bardoe, but little of any relevance.

FRANKENSTEIN at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★★

“it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory”

Tilted Wig presents a telling of Mary Shelley’s classic Victorian novel adapted and directed by Séan Aydon. The story begins in a lonely wooden hut somewhere in the cold frozen wilds. A starving traveller bangs on the door and is admitted by the scared and suspicious person living within. There is palpable tension in a scene almost devoid of dialogue. Both strangers have a story to tell but it is that of Doctor Victoria Frankenstein that we will see acted out before us.

The cabin moves away to reveal the Doctor’s laboratory. The set (designer Nicky Bunch) is a minimalist masterpiece. Shelves with a myriad of illuminated jars containing who knows what, skulls in cabinets. A half-tiled wall resembles that of the morgue or the asylum. Dominating the rear of the stage is a huge window like that of a church or cathedral. Doctor Frankenstein (Eleanor McLoughlin) and her assistant Francine (Annette Hannah) are about to complete an audacious experiment – the creation of life – by conducting an impending lightning strike into a mismatch of body parts and organs.

We are introduced to Henry (Dale Mathurin), a physicist sickened by the gooiness of biology, and Victoria’s love interest. But there is little spark between the two characters and it is hard to believe in their romance. The dialogue is stilted and some attempts at humour don’t land. Victoria’s sister Elizabeth (Lula Marsh) – feminine, colourful and vivacious against Victoria’s androgenous, drab, and dowdy – arrives unannounced and then as quickly departs.

The audience awaits the introduction of the Creature to lift the production above the pedestrian. Cameron Robertson is outstanding, bringing the Creature to life with a great deal of twitching, moaning and gurning. We feel his pain. With the help of excellent make-up and prosthetics (Missy Brazier), he is repulsive to look at and Robertson commands the stage, his movements deliberately awkward and clumsy with a drop of the shoulder and a twisted gait. A number of jump-scares add to the power of the storytelling.

Elements of the Gothic are seen in the extended flashes of lightning through the large window (lighting Matt Haskins), but this production skilfully avoids any slide into cliché or shtick. An eerie soundtrack of music and electronics (composer Eamonn O’Dwyer), reminiscent of a film soundtrack, heightens the tension at key moments.

This adaptation is set in pre-war Germany and there are sufficient mentions of master race ambitions for us to understand the writer’s suggestions. There are sinister undertones in the speech of Dr Richter (Basienka Blake) which are shown in her open disgust of Francine and Henry. The actor shows off her vocal versatility too with a role and accent so different to that of her earlier appearance in the wooden hut. A powerful scene between the Doctor and Francine raises the question of responsibilities with McLaughlin and Hannah’s performances reaching a new level of passion and earnestness.

Mary Shelley’s story is passably narrated in this two-hour adaptation. Much of the work falls on the competent but overly fastidious Eleanor McLaughlin as the Doctor but it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory.

A VOYAGE AROUND MY FATHER at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★

“This production is as cosy as a Sunday afternoon TV period drama”

A VOYAGE AROUND MY FATHER at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

Reviewed on 17th October 2023

by Phillip Money

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

A Voyage Around my Father

A Voyage Around my Father

FRANKENSTEIN at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★★

“it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory”