Frankenstein – Double bill with Dracula

Using all the entertainment fireworks of Regency and Victorian theatre – music, comedy, drama, tableaux, song and captivating story-telling – the earliest Fright Night Frisson will be brought back to vivid theatrical life. From 1823, a world of romance and revolution, came the first adaptation of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s thrilling tale of technology gone beyond human control. The first adaptation, named Presumption: Or The Fate of Frankenstein, by Richard Brinsley Peake, was first performed at the English Opera House. One of the non -patent theatres, the producers were obliged to include pantomime, music and spectacle to obtain a licence, and so the play remains a thrilling piece of story-telling and a fascinating insight into the theatre of the Regency. Mary Shelley declared herself to be “much amused, & it appeared to excite a breatheless eagerness in the audience”.