Young Frankenstein

Whenever you see ‘Mel Brooks’ in the title page you know you are in for zany, off the wall, irreverent comedy and this wasn’t disproved with a trip to see Gateshead MTC’s “Young Frankenstein”.

Telling the story of Dr Frankenstein’s grandson, Frederick Frankenstein (Scott Brannigan-Howes), heading off to Transylvania to finalise up his grandfathers estate he quickly becomes embroiled in following in his grandfather’s footsteps and indeed fetching back to life a freshly dug up corpse with hilarious results.

In the prologue we see Frederick’s last class of medical students as he explains to them the complexities of the Brain before he leaves the US for spookier climes – but not before he says goodbye to his puritanical fiancée, Elizabeth Benning (Rubee Mellon) on the departure dock with the humorous song/dance “Please Don’t Touch Me” where they dance, without holding any part of their bodies, in a display of chastity – this scene set the foundation of Rubee’s fine singing voice and fine acting skills.

Once Frederick has eventually arrived in Transylvania he is introduced to his castle staff of Igor (Gary Nugent) and Frau Blucher (Katie Howes) – both were eccentric characters and both totally suited to their roles with Gary’s OTT movement and stilted speech patterns as a ‘Hunchback’ and Katies deadpan face and heavily Teutonic accent. Despite the comedy nature of their roles, both showed their versality in singing, no more so than Katie’s “He Vas My Boyfriend” which the audience (and I) thoroughly appreciated.

Igor had hired a young Transylvanian girl as an assistant to Frederick – Inga (Erin Boyle) who “wow’d” with her looks and rich singing voice throughout. The scene, Roll in the Hay, where effectively Inga threw herself into Frederick’s lap (and other parts of his anatomy) whilst bouncing up and down in a hay cart driven by Igor was hilarious and a joy to behold. This was doubly enhanced by the back-projected video onto a screen behind the trio as they to’d and throw’d along a winding country lane and was excellent.

Scott and Erin worked well together as their chemistry developed throughout the production.

Soon Frederick and his trusty team were experimenting again with the main protagonist against their experiments being Inspector Hans Kemp (Keith Hewison) and even though I knew it was coming I still laughed at the ‘arm and a leg’ joke.

Taking on roles as Ludwig/Bertram Batram, Student and villagers were Thomas Nugent (with a plentiful wardrobe of false moustaches), Lucy Wilkinson, Fiona Routledge and Vicky Nugent.

One of the most surreal scenes is that of blind and very lonely ‘Hermit’ (Martin Gray) as he implores God ‘Please Send me Someone’ to ease his loneliness only to find his prayers answered by a grunting ‘Monster’ (Pete Johnson) - the chaos and facial expressions by Pete were a joy to behold.

‘Elizabeth’ (Frankenstein’s fiancée) by this time has made a surprise trip to meet up with her boyfriend only to meet with the Monster and form a mutual symbiotic attraction which it seems is borne out by the physical attributes of the Monster.

Frederick whilst attempting to ward off the fears of the marauding villagers of the ensemble teaches the Monster a few rudimentary ‘human traits’ leading to a tap dancing scene including the Monster tapping along to and singing in stilted form the chorus to ‘Putting On the Ritz’ – always a brilliant scene.

Eventually with ‘Hans Kemp’ narrowing in on, and cornering both Frederick and the Monster – Frederick attempts an untried ‘mind transference’ with the Monster giving him the mind of a genius and the Dr the physical attributes of the Monster leaving the Monster to go off with the previously thought lost Elizabeth; Frau Blucher to go off with Hans Kemp; and Frederick with Inga.

Well done to the production team for using the video projections to keep scene changes to a minimum and for Claire Garbutt to MD from the front to keep the cast at pace against the piped backing tracks (not an easy task)

This was a opening night to be proud off – Well done to all involved in Young Frankenstein

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