ANYONE expecting a Boris Karloff lookalike, angry villagers with pitchforks and torches and dear old Peter Cushing’s hair flapping about as he conducts mad experiments during a lightning storm in a ruined old castle in the Bavarian alps will be sadly disappointed.

Except for the lightning storm that is.

And, for Victor Frankenstein read Victoria is this newish adaptation by Seán Aydon of Mary Shelley’s classic gothic horror novel as Emily-Jane McNeill takes on the lead role as the mad, life-giving scientist.

Also, swap the 18th century for 1943 as the horrors of the Second World War provide the tumultuous backdrop to this tale of Victoria Frankenstein and a new found companion hiding from their pasts. It really is a matter of life and death.

The play first toured last autumn so this is in a sense an early revival, new life, a reawakening – it’s alive, it’s ALIVE! (which was not a line from the book but uttered by Colin Clive in the iconic 1931 Universal Pictures film).

There have been countless adaptations of Frankenstein over the years. This one, at least, tried something different. And it’s a reminder that horror is exceptionally difficult to convey successfully in a theatre setting.

A solid cast also includes Tawana Dingembira as Henry, Brianne Surgeoner as Francine, Lydia Whitehead as Elizabeth, and original cast member Basienka Blake as Captain/Dr Richter.

It all starts slowly. The intimate, front-of-stage setting is an isolated hut with ropes and furs on the wall, lowly lit by hurricane lamps, and it is evidently very cold.

The solo occupant, later revealed as an escapee from the Nazis, is soon joined by a mystery interloper who begs shelter and food. This stranger is Victoria Frankenstein who tells her wary host her monster is roaming outside seeking to kill her.

She begins her story, told in a pre-war flashback occupying most of the stage time, and the set changes, somewhat laboriously, into a laboratory, complete with operating table, cabinets full of jars with mysterious contents and a massive skylight.

The dialogue is, frankly, somewhat clunky as Victoria’s sister Elizabeth arrives and is hastily packed off to dinner with Henry, a physician who seems to have no clue what Victoria gets up to in the lab, abetted by her faithful, disabled retainer Francine (in the traditional Igor role). Sadly, it’s all dragging a bit by this stage.

We learn it is the long-awaited night of a major electrical storm, the culmination of months, if not years, of work as Victoria’s ambition of giving life is about to be fulfilled. Cue a massive electrical charge powering through the lifeless, pieced-together body. Sadly, it doesn’t work so Victoria and Francine immediately pop off to dinner with the others.

However, it has succeeded, and in the best of the scene-setting first half’s limited highlights, the monster comes alive, writhes about and crawls off stage right to escape or die. Victoria, returning to retrieve a forgotten item, is aghast.

The second act is much better, much meatier and deals with the bigger issues of life, death, humanity, feelings, society, master races, discrimination, fascism, horror, sadness and more major themes. The body count also piles up and there is one shocking, out-of-the-seat moment.

Drama over, Victoria turns to other work. The Government turns up, wanting to make use of her previous experiments to create some sort of rematerialised dead Nazi army and the odious Dr Richter looks disdainfully at Francine.

Time ticks on, then the monster reappears, now well-read, quoting Hamlet, but plagued by rotting flesh and uneven looks – ‘she had little time for aesthetics’ – confronting Victoria, who remains more obsessed with the success of her experiment and what it means than the poor, abject creature in front of her. She agrees to make him a mate, buy eventually sees the error of her ways.

Andy Creswell shines as the unfortunate, but murderous, creature and the denouement, back in the mountain hut, is powerful enough to stop even the most dedicated of school party sweet bag rustlers to stop and watch the action for a while.