From Trainspotting to 28 Days Later to Slumdog Millionaire, British director Danny Boyle has a kinetic cinematic style that’s unmistakable. But his work hasn’t just been on the big screen. As well as envisioning the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, in 2011 he directed a stage adaptation of Frankenstein for the National Theatre – a striking, searing take on Mary Shelley’s classic novel with all the energy you’d expect from a Boyle project, led by a star cast pairing of Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. Each night, the duo would switch roles – with one playing Victor Frankenstein, and the other portraying the Creature.
From tonight, 30 April, the production will be streaming online to keep lockdown spirits up and raise money for the National Theatre, as part of the National Theatre At Home initiative. The show begins streaming on the NT’s YouTube page from 7pm, and will remain available to rewatch for the next week until 7pm on Friday 8 May. Both versions of the show will be made available – first up will be Cumberbatch playing the Creature and Miller portraying Frankenstein, with the opposite version arriving tomorrow night on Friday 1 May. On the YouTube page is the option to donate, helping the British theatrical institution while it’s having to remain closed. Watch the stream below.
And to whet your appetite, here’s a clip from the show offering a glimpse at Miller’s interpretation of Frankenstein.
For Boyle fans, it’s a must-see piece of work that remains otherwise unavailable. Meanwhile, if you have an extra couple of hours to kill while waiting for Frankenstein to begin, you can still catch last week’s stream of Shakespeare’s festive comedy Twelfth Night, featuring Tamsin Greig as a brilliantly-conceived gender-swapped incarnation of lampooned, yellow-gartered misery-guts Malvolio (here called Malvolia).