6 – 10 May
Frankenstein (On A Budget) is a frenetic, charming, and unusually thoughtful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, staged with cardboard props, a pile of hats, and a remarkable amount of discipline beneath the mayhem. Lamphouse Theatre’s one-man, Rocky Horror-esque musical embraces its limitations with confidence. Though presented with broad humour, it carries a clear affection for Shelley’s original and a pleasing awareness of its underlying philosophical weight.
Lamphouse’s Artistic Director Tom Fox, who also directs, plays every role in the story, supported by Producer and Narrator Becky Owen-Fisher, who handles transitions, framing, and comic interjections with clarity and warmth. Together, they guide us briskly through countries, characters, and timelines using little more than props, accents, and choreography to suggest motion and momentum. That it ever makes sense is impressive; that it often lands with genuine feeling is even more so.
The lo-fi aesthetic is central to the conceit. But beyond the gags and frantic physicality lies a surprisingly close reading of Shelley’s structure. The production gestures toward the novel’s layered framing devices and mirrors its central doubling; Victor and the Creature, both played by the same performer, bound by creation, blame, and mutual ruin. It also draws out a less frequently dramatised idea: that Victor’s desire for control — to build, to perfect, to animate — is not just genius misapplied but a kind of death drive.
Some jokes misfire; a sausage gag in particular feels misjudged. There are also moments when the tone veers toward cutesiness. But these are small faults in a production that largely knows what it’s doing and why. It’s light, yes, but lightness with depth. The standout musical number, “I Want a Wife for Life”, is comically ridiculous and rooted in the Creature’s aching desire for connection. Elsewhere, the line “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” rings clearly, through both the humour and the horror, just as it does in the novel.
The final sequence lands well. Shelley’s ending is stark and unresolved, and this production honours that. Everyone is destroyed, not by malice but by the consequences of unchecked ambition. But where the novel ends in ice and silence, Lamphouse offers a final musical number that gestures towards acceptance: a gently comic song in the spirit of “always look on the bright side of life,” suggesting that the real warning is not just about science or creation, but also about obsession, perfectionism, and the pressure to succeed.
Frankenstein (On A Budget) is smart, funny, and far more faithful than it first appears. It may be made of cardboard, but its ethical core, like the Creature’s, is stitched together with real thought. It doesn’t always soar, but it holds fast to what matters: the cost of ambition, the mess of being human, and the fragile dignity of letting things be unfinished.
★★★★☆ Tilly Marshall, 7 May 2025
Photography credit: Thomas Byron Photography
