On March 19th, the night of the Supermoon, NT Live put on ‘Frankenstein’s Wedding‘ in Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds.

I missed it. Handily, it was also shown on BBC3.

I don’t know where to begin with this. It’s a modern retelling, with the vast majority of the action taking place in one night. It took place in and around Kirkstall Abbey, with flashbacks filmed separately. As far as I can gather most of the crowd were outside (along with food stalls, portaloos, and giant screens so people could keep track of what was going on), while the bulk f the action took place in and around the Abbey.

The Abbey was a perfect setting, being beautiful church, gothic laboratory, and medieval boudoir all at once. In places, though, it required one to suspend one’s disbelief rather precariously; a problem endemic with the whole thing. Trying to condense enough of the novel’s plot to make the set-up work forced the viewer to make some massive leaps of logical for example, how did a body grown in a vat (rather than made from dead body parts) acquire speech so quickly? The novel has problems in this area too, but it has time and space to handwave it rather more successfully. In fact, if you hadn’t read the novel I’m not sure how well you’d follow the plot. Characters like Justine and Henry are welcome, often written out of adapatations for simplicity, but the addition of Fred Frankenstein is just bizarre (a shout out to Young Frankenstein? Or just a bad attempt at upping the comedic elements?). The music was odd, too; I suspect it probably sounded better if you were actually there, but it surprised me that for the TV broadcast they didn’t attempt to do anything about the levels. The shift from wedding band to musical style solos was something of a surprise too – not a bad one (they sounded better than the band segments) but a little jarring.

Reports from the field suggest that it was immensely enjoyable, but following the plot wasn’t a primary concern. Showing off your glad rags, listening to the bands, learning the dance routine and getting to know your fellow ‘guests’ meant it wasn’t too much of a problem. The one advantage of TV was the impact of the 12000 guests: the moment when everyone took photos was stunning and the dance was brilliant.

It’s split the Guardian: 2* from Alfred Hickling and a glowing opinion piece by John Baron. I’m split myself. On the one hand I love the idea of it, but on the other I think the execution was lacking.