KAREN & THE CONSTABLES

I’ve been a bit quiet this last couple of weeks as I’ve been trying to organise holidays to get away after a very busy time at work, all of which is very stressful in itself and now I need two holidays to make up for it!  In amongst all this panic and madness, something amazing happened. I went to see both versions of Frankenstein.

You may or may not know that I’m a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch and I would have loved to have gone to see Frankenstein live at the theatre, but it just wasn’t feasible. So when I found out it would be shown in my local cinema I was ecstatic!

National Theatre Live takes stage shows from the National Theatre in London to cinemas all over the world by making live recordings of plays, which I think is absolutely fantastic!  I love going to the theatre and there are great one’s here, but you don’t get to see productions like this unless they tour.

I first heard about this screening months ago, so I’d been regularly checking the cinema’s website, waiting for tickets to be released.  Then when they were I kept an eye on the seating plan to see how quickly it was filling up. I’m an Unlimited cardholder which is great for discounts to NTL productions, but doesn’t allow booking prior to the event.  In the week before the showing I received an email to say that all Unlimited cardholders now get 50% off NTL showings, so that was even better!

The time had come and I was so excited!  The first showing starred Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Dr Frankenstein and I was blown away.

From the minute it started it was so engaging and there was a real theatre feel to it. I became aware that I was sitting with my mouth constantly open and my eyes wide open, absorbing everything.

If I try to describe it in depth it’ll sound stupid (I’ve already tried a number of times!), but Danny Boyle did a great job. It was stunning, emotional and at times humorous.

I went to see the alternative cast version with Jonny as the Creature and Benedict as Victor Frankenstein last night. It was fantastic but may have been spoiled slightly by my having seen it before. Don’t get me wrong, it was also amazing, but I knew what was going to happen, so I could sit back and enjoy it, taking in how the actors interpreted the roles differently and taking in more of the detail.

If you are even considering going to see this, DO IT!