House of Frankenstein

Baron Victor Von Frankenstein, bored with attempting to give life to the lifeless, has turned to curing the supposedly incurable. In his castle, he and his long suffering wife Elizabeth, his devout servant Ygor, the Valkyrian housekeeper Frau Lurker and the monster (who doubles as a drinks trolley and standard lamp) play host to various denizens of the night, who visit the Baron to beg him to rid them of their vices. This challenge, although a welcome diversion for the headstrong scientist, proves to be no picnic... more of a living nightmare! A highly entertaining, wise cracking horror from Cumbernauld's best loved amateur company.

BARON VICTOR VON FRANKENSTEIN	Peter Capaldi	YGOR	Derek Green
THE MONSTER	Brian Lallaway	FRAU LURKER	Pat Currie
BARONESS ELIZABETH VON FRANKENSTEIN	Marie Reid	HARRY TALBOT	Allan McPhail
COUNTESS ILONA BATHORY	Pamela Moir	THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA	Joe Thomson
COUNT VLAD DRACULA	Drew Anderson	MISS ISABEL CHANNING	Stephanie Dodds
THE INVISIBLE MAN	Who knows???

The old film monsters of the 1930's, like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Invisible Man, offer plenty of scope for a rip-roaring horror comedy.

Martin Downing's play "The House of Frankenstein" is not that rip-roaring horror comedy. In this play, Dracula isn't the only thing to come back from the dead - most of the jokes, too, expired many, many years ago.

It wasn't just Frankenstein's Monster who was slow and lumbering, Mr Downing's script exhibited these qualities in abundance.

As a consequence, the odds were stacked firmly against the Apex Players, who performed the play at Cumbernauld Theatre last week.

Saddled with such poor material, director Bill Green and his cast had to work extra hard to make the whole thing work. That they did is a tribute to the infectious enthusiasm of the performers

Peter Capaldi was in fine form as the manic egomaniac Baron Victor Von Frankenstein, setting out on a new mission to cure visitors to his Carpathian Castle (the furnishings of which included a most un-Carpathian couch) of their ailments.

These visitors included Drew Anderson, cool and controlled as Count Dracula, and Pamela Moir as his love, Countess Ilona Bathory, Joe Thomson as the Phantom of the Opera and Allan McPhail as wolf-man Harry Talbot, butt of the show's poorest gags.

Providing the Baron with varying degrees of help and hindrance were the Baroness (Marie Reid), the Monster (Brian Lallaway in Doc Martens and neck bolts) and Pat Currie as grim housekeeper Frau Lurker.

The show's best performances came from Derek Green as Ygor and Stephanie Dodds as the Phantom's amour, showgirl Isabel Channing.

Derek's Ygor provided the Baron with a particularly bizarre manservant, armed with a toilet brush haircut, a particularly strange walk and a voice located somewhere between Peter Lorre and Charlie Drake.

Taking on "The House of Frankenstein" was a gamble, and one which paid off - just.

It appears that Martin Downing has written a sequel to "The House of Frankenstein". One hopes it is allowed, unlike its predecessor, to rest in peace.