Day 148 - Young Frankenstein

Day 2 of our stay in London and now the weather is getting really fierce by U.K. standards. The media is calling it the Beast of the East meets Emma. The Beast is a Russian cold front that has made things quite chilly, not Canadian winter cold but it has impacted most places here which aren'tt really designed to deal with temperatures that drop down to -8 C at night. Emma is a low-pressure cell that's coming from Portugal, and the combination of her warm, moist air with the cold high pressure is a recipe for lots of snow -- and that is what we are getting.  I think that by tomorrow there will be quite a story to tell, but that is not what today is about.

Our business finished by early afternoon, so Angela and I made the decision to get cheap same-day tickets for a West End stage play or musical. We also decided that we might try and squeeze in the film, Call Me By My Name, if we could in the afternoon. More on that at the end.

London Cast

Our choice of theatre was the musical, Young Frankenstein. It was written by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder initially as a movie (as many of you will recall) in the early 1970s. It followed Blazing Saddles, which was a huge hit, and when Mel asked Gene Wilder to play the Gunslinger with a drinking problem in that movie, it was reported that Wilder would only do it if Mel was willing to work with him on an idea that Wilder had about the descendant of Dr. Frankenstein who returns to Transylvania. The musical was written decades later when Mel Brooks adopted the original story from the movie and added songs, lyrics and music written by him.

First Stage Production - 1823

The story of Frankenstein originates from a novel written by the English author, Mary Shelley.  Supposedly she wrote the book in response to a wager with her husband to be, Percy Shelley the romance poet, and Lord Byron. Shelley was only 17 when she began writing it, and in 1818 it was published anonymously (she was 20). It had its first theatrical performance in 1823.

The musical opened on Broadway in late 2007 and ran for 458 performances until January 2009.  It was 8 years later that the show made its appearance in London's West End with some new songs written by Brooks. For our performance, the lead was replaced by the understudy, so the production had some timing issues, and with the weather getting worse by the hour, the Garrick Theatre was only about 2/3 full. But by the time it finished the audience was getting into it and all in all we enjoyed it, even if it felt like it was more of a travelling show than one that was based in the West End. 

We also had the advantage of half price tickets plus an upgrade upon our arrival due principally to the theatre staff wanting the grand circle filled as opposed to being mostly empty (we had originally been seated in the third level upper circle). 

Our day finished with a post-theatre snack and a tube ride back to our hotel. We knew by morning that we would be facing a red-alert snowstorm. 

As for the film, well it was deserving of a best picture nomination, but it has its moments where one wonders if the director still thought he was in film school. On the SmithWalsh scale, 3.5 out of 5.

Ale of Day: London Pale Ale, Meantime Brewery, Greenwich, London