London Theatre In Your Hometown: Part 2

I wanted to follow up on developments since I first posted about the National Theatre's production of Frankenstein, and Digital Theatre's online downloads.

Frankenstein recently opened in London, and the reviews have been generally positive (and the show has sold out), receiving strongest marks for atmosphere and memorable stage pictures. The biggest complaint was that the script is a bit lopsided, with the well-fleshed out character of the Creature leaving the underwritten role of Victor Frankenstein left looking even thinner by comparison.

My roommate and I decided that we were just too poor to see the production on both screening nights, and agonized over which version of the cast to see. Eventually, my roommate made an executive decision, and we will be seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Frankenstein and Jonny Lee Miller as The Creature. This was before reviews were posted, and (at least according to the NY Times) they are better suited in those roles. I also found out that British electronic music group Underworld wrote the music for the show, so that should be exciting, as well.



I also checked out the website for Digital Theatre, and they offer some exciting stuff. You can download shows with British stars like The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln, and a production of Into The Woods which caught my eye when they published dramatic production stills on Playbill.com last summer caught my attention. Unfortunately, the latter is listed as "coming soon", and they haven't posted a trailer yet. But there is an fun-looking, stripped-down production of Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors, which you can purchase alone, or bundled with a making-of documentary. Downloads are offered for less than $10, so I'll probably get Comedy of Errors first, and let you know how I like it.

You can't embed the trailer, but you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hie-ks6gD8

I'll update this post with some related media later; I've been sick lately, so I keep half-writing posts, then forgetting why they were interesting in the first place and abandoning them, so I wanted to get something out there before the cough syrup wins out again!