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iFrankenstein!

or A Bolt from the Blue, op. 95

A Victorian Melodrama for Schools based on Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein, for Narrator, Unison Voices and Piano

Words and music by Carey Blyton
Duration: 40 minutes (approx.)

Dedicated to Gary Higginson
First performed by the Junior Choir of the School of St Helen & St Katharine, Abingdon (a girls’ school), under the direction of the dedicatee, with narrators drawn from the Senior School; the performance was unstaged, and occurred in the presence of the composer.

First performance: 24th June 1988

Thanks to Gary Higginson for providing the recording of the first performance, and to Paul Kelly for transferring it from tape

Frankenstein!

or

A Bolt from the Blue

Frankenstein!: First Performance

Unlike Sweeney Todd and Dracula!, Carey Blyton’s third and last Victorian Melodrama for Schools, Frankenstein!, has not yet been commercially recorded. It is therefore an exciting privilege for this site to be able to present for the first time the first public performance of the work. Many thanks to Gary Higginson, the work’s dedicatee and the director of that first performance, for making this recording available (and to Paul Kelly for rescuing it from tape).

The recording has been very lightly edited for its presentation here. A small amount of noise reduction has been applied throughout to reduce the tape hiss, which was very obvious, without conspicuously altering the sound of the voices; also, a few short, extraneous sections of ‘silence’ (containing the sound of footsteps and coughs as people moved around) have been edited out.

It should of course be borne in mind that this is an amateur recording of an amateur performance by children, and the appropriate allowances made! (Nevertheless, it is in fact a very creditable performance.)

Frankenstein!

Complete first performance: 24th June 1988

The complete recording of the first performance may be heard in its entirety here. Alternatively, the individual sections may be found presented separately below, along with the full libretto.

Cast

ChoirJunior Choir of the School of
St Helen & St Katharine, Abingdon
Narrator 1Tanuja Shah
Narrator 2Elouise Love
FrankensteinEmma Maher
ElizabethMichelle Stephenson
IgorSally Dennet
The MonsterClare Hutchinson
AccompanistElizabeth Atkins
DirectorGary Higginson

Both Carey and Mary Blyton were in attendance at this performance.

Composer’s Notes

Performance

Frankenstein! or A Bolt from the BlueThis is a fun piece for schools; it may be done quite simply as written, or the score may be used as the basis for something much more elaborate, involving scenery, costumes and ‘props’. Or it can be done in any way in between.

The songs may be sung by all the voices; or solo voices (characters) may be used in contrast with massed ‘choruses’; or the boys may sing the male songs and a girl, the only female song (twice); and so on.

If instruments are used to accompany the voices, then choose banjo/ukelele rather than guitar; cornet rather than trumpet, and so on, if a choice is available; aim for a music hall orchestra sound. (An ‘ideal’ music hall orchestra sound may be heard on Meridian Records’ recording of Sweeney Todd the Barber and Dracula! or The Vampire Vanquished, both by Carey Blyton and published by Novello & Co. Ltd.)

Make use of the conventions of Victorian melodrama (in moderation!), e.g. hissing the Monster, and make use of the suggested sound effects and visual gags, if you wish. The second voice part in No. 9, ‘The Chase’, is purely optional—it might be more effective to use it in only one or two verses, rather than in all of them. (I have suggested verse 4 only.)

Narrative

The action in this melodrama follows very closely the action in Mary Shelley’s book, even up to the climax in the Arctic. However, two extraneous items have been taken from the ‘Hollywood tradition’, namely, the manservant, Igor, and the ‘bolt in the neck’, since these are now part and parcel of the legend of “Frankenstein” in most people’s minds.

Carey Blyton, 1989

Libretto

There are a few minor differences between the words used in the first performance recorded here and the words printed in the score. The libretto below reproduces the words as shown in the score.

‘CURTAIN UP’ (A Little Fright Music)

(Musical introduction)

NARRATOR
Once upon a time – unfortunately – there lived in Geneva the Swiss Family Frankenstein: Alphonse, the father; Mrs F.; three boys – Victor, Ernest and William; and an adopted daughter, Elizabeth Lavenza. Oh, yes—there was also another adopted daughter named Justine Moritz, who did all the hard work around the house.

They all lived quietly together – nothing ever happens in Switzerland – until the eldest son, Victor, went off to be a student… well, you know what students are. Victor had been a precocious child, showing an unhealthy interest in a lot of very unsuitable things like Black Magic and Metaphysics (whatever they are), but when he got to the University of Ingolstadt in Upper Bavaria he became a lot more interested in things like Chemistry and Biology.

In no time at all he was obsessed with the idea of creating life itself! He was convinced that electricity was the key to life, and wore a badge on his laboratory coat which said:

ELECTRICITY—ENERGY FOR LIFE

He acquired a very dubious manservant named Igor to fetch and carry for him, and for two years – day and night – Victor Frankenstein and Igor beavered away, trying to create life. Victor didn’t even stop to go back to Geneva for his mother’s funeral, which was a bit ‘off’.

Ingolstadt is round a bend on the River Danube, and it wasn’t very long before Victor was round the bend, too…

1. ANIMAL BIOLOGY (Frankenstein’s Song)

FRANKENSTEIN
I study…

CHORUS

(*scratching vigorously)

VERSE

FRANKENSTEIN
I study…

CHORUS

(*scratching vigorously)

VERSE

FRANKENSTEIN
I study…

CHORUS

(*scratching vigorously)

NARRATOR
Back in Geneva everyone missed Victor rather a lot, especially Elizabeth. They couldn’t understand who he hadn’t been home for two years—and Justine Moritz was getting pretty worried about the amount of dirty laundry Victor would bring back with him when he eventually did return.

Victor’s father was a bit put out, too, since he wanted Victor to marry Elizabeth as soon as possible. So Elizabeth – who was not averse to this idea, as old man F. was a rich old stick – went on writing letters to Victor saying: ‘When are you going to move back to Geneva?’ All in all, they were very moving letters…

2. COME BACK TO US, DEAR VICTOR (Elizabeth’s Song)

ELIZABETH

NARRATOR
But it was to no avail. Victor was absolutely wrapped up in his obsession, like The Mummy. Having discovered that electricity was the key to life, he was too busy animating all kinds of creatures who had ‘Passed Beyond’—some were quite put out at being ‘Brought Back’, too.

Victor had decided to make a MAN! Not just any old man, but a SUPERMAN!! It would be eight feet tall and have the brain of a genius. Only he hadn’t bargained for Igor’s clumsiness… giving Igor a job was to have disastrous consequences…

3. EAGER IGOR (Igor’s Song)

IGOR

CHORUS

IGOR

CHORUS

NARRATOR
And now we come to the most regrettable part of this altogether regrettable story: Victor decided to assemble the Superman from the very best bits of bodies he could get from here, there and everywhere—especially everywhere. So Igor was sent off to gather odd bits of bodies from some very unsavoury places, like gallows and graveyards and teaching hospitals and mortuaries. It was all terribly immoral—but Victor didn’t care.

Even a warning from the Scots firm of Burke & Hare (‘Grave-robbers to the Medical Profession—You Want the Best Bits, We Have Them’) didn’t deter him. Burke & Hare simply had to put up with it, complaining that they’d made a good living out of people dying until Victor Frankenstein came onto the scene.

Igor just went on popping in and out of the laboratory, doing his best to meet Victor’s ever-increasing demands, for ‘just another little bit won’t do him any harm’… but Igor didn’t tell him that he’d dropped the brain of a genius down the drain—the first known example of ‘The Brain Drain’…

4. SPARE PARTS (Frankenstein and Igor)

VERSE

(*St Bartholomew’s, London’s famous teaching hospital.)

CHORUS

VERSE

CHORUS

VERSE

CHORUS

VERSE

CHORUS

NARRATOR
At last the Superman was finished, although Victor had trouble with the head… he had to attach it to the body with a large iron bolt! Doing that up was quite a wrench… a Number 8, I believe it was. But when Victor tried to animate the Superman… NOTHING HAPPENED! It was a great disappointment. He tried this and that, but nothing would work—not even ‘Duracell’ Extra Long-Life Batteries.

Finally, one night, there was a terrible storm, with lots of thunder and lightning. Suddenly, a bolt from the blue came crashing through the sky-light and struck the bolt in the Superman’s neck. That made him sit up and take notice, I can tell you!

But Victor wasn’t just disappointed with the results of all his hard work—he was horrified! The Superman was quite awful: instead of the most perfect and beautiful Man ever created, it was a hideous creature—a MONSTER! Victor was so upset that he rushed upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom, hoping that the Monster would go away. Which it did… for a while…

5. IN FOR ME! (The Monster’s Lament)

THE MONSTER

CHORUS

THE MONSTER

CHORUS

THE MONSTER

CHORUS

THE MONSTER

CHORUS

NARRATOR
When Victor finally plucked up courage to come downstairs and take a look in the laboratory he was pretty relieved to find that the Monster had gone—taking his best jacket with him (…Victor’s best jacket, not the Monster’s).

Then his best friend, Henry Clerval, turned up (Victor’s best friend, not the Monster’s). He’d been sent from Geneva to see what was going on, and he lost no time in reporting back to the folks at home that Victor didn’t seem to be quite himself.

In fact, what with all the hard work and shock, Victor then had a ‘brain fever’ – hardly surprising really – and Henry had to nurse him back to health, which took ages.

Then the first blow struck! When Victor and Henry got back from a well-deserved holiday, there was a letter from Victor’s father waiting for them. It said that little William, Victor’s youngest brother, had been found dead in the woods… strangled!

Victor just knew that the Monster had had a hand in this—if not two hands…

6. THE FIRST BLOW (Little William)

(Piano solo)

NARRATOR
The two friends made a sorrowful journey back to Geneva, only to be told on their arrival that Justine Moritz was awaiting execution for little William’s murder! The wily old Monster had planted a little portrait of Mrs F. (which he’d taken from little William’s body) on Justine as she slept. And so the second blow fell as Justine was executed, because Victor couldn’t very well say anything about the Monster—well, could he?

Being quite put out by all this, Victor took himself off for yet another holiday, this time in Chamounix in the French Alps, where the antelopes play. While up in the mountains he had the misfortune to meet up with the Monster, who made the most outrageous suggestion: he would (he said) stop killing people if Victor would make him a mate—a woman as monstrous as himself!

At first Victor refused but eventually he agreed, thinking it best to humour the Creature… well, wouldn’t you? I mean, the Monster had a compelling argument… he threatened to kill him if he didn’t.

So Victor decided to get away from it all and do this horrible job in Scotland—he travelled on the famous Switzerland-to-Scotland train, the ‘William MacTell’…

7. THE WILLIAM MacTELL (Frankenstein’s Journey)

(Piano solo)

NARRATOR
So Victor took himself off to a remote island in the Orkneys to undertake this fiendish work. It was as good a place as any: some very funny people live on Hoy so another one wouldn’t be noticed, he thought. And he was alone with his gruesome burden, since Henry Clerval had accompanied him as far as London and then gone off to tour England.

Victor proceeded with the dreadful task and then had a change of mind—maybe the Woman Monster would be even more awful than the Monster itself, he thought! So, in a fit of depression – not uncommon in Scotland because of the frightful weather – he destroyed his hideous handiwork.

The Monster was furious – he’d followed Victor, by the way, just to make sure that he kept his part of the bargain – and swore the most terrible vengeance on what was left of Victor’s family (…and it’s three down and four to go, by the way).

‘I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING NIGHT,’ he promised—which didn’t sound too encouraging for anybody.

Then Henry Clerval turned up again…

(REPRISE) 6. THE FIRST BLOW (Little William)

(Piano solo)

NARRATOR
…Yes, you’ve guessed it! This time Henry Clerval turned up dead—he was found strangled on an Irish beach, of all places. (He must have got on the wrong bus somewhere, while touring England.)

So Victor beat a hasty retreat to Geneva, where he finally married the patient Elizabeth. The happy couple went off for their honeymoon on Mont Blanc. (A funny place to spend a honeymoon, but there it is.) Victor looked like a pirate, loaded down with guns and knives in his determination to protect them from the Monster’s revenge. But it was to no avail, alas; it turned out to be the shortest honeymoon on record…

8. MURDER! (Elizabeth’s Demise

ELIZABETH

NARRATOR
Victor’s poor old Dad couldn’t take any more of all this horror—I mean, what with the deaths of William, Justine, Henry Clerval and now Elizabeth. He just said: ‘Oh, dear’—and expired forthwith. (Well, there were four of them…) So Victor and Ernest had to attend a double funeral, all on their own. And – believe it or not – that rotten old Monster even turned up at the funeral to put the mockers on them!

So Victor in his turn swore revenge and decided to hunt the Monster down and destroy him, no matter how long it took.

When he left Geneva, loaded up with his haversack, water-bottle, sleeping bag and musket, he could hardly walk. But, at any rate, he became the very first known back-packer, which is some small claim to fame. The hunt took him on quite a wild goose chase… and it was quite some goose he was going to ‘cook’ once he’d caught up with it…

9. THE CHASE (Frankenstein’s Second Song)

FRANKENSTEIN

CHORUS

FRANKENSTEIN

CHORUS

FRANKENSTEIN

CHORUS

FRANKENSTEIN

CHORUS

NARRATOR
Well, I expect you’ll be glad to know that we are near the end of this dismal tale. The Monster finally led Victor into the Arctic where Victor, almost dead on his feet from fatigue and frostbite (to say nothing of all that idiot gear he was humping), was rescued by an Englishman named Captain Robert Walton.

He was about as dotty as Victor, since he’d got his ship trapped in the pack-ice (a hard ship indeed), in a vain search for something called ‘The North-West Passage’: it was supposed to be a short-cut to Honolulu or something, but didn’t actually exist… so his crew were pretty fed up as it was, without unwelcome visitors turning up…

10. THE FROZEN ARCTIC (Sea Shanty)

Based on the shanty, ‘The Wide Mizzourye’ (“O Shenandoah”)

NARRATOR
Anyway, Captain Walton and his crew had seen the Monster go by on a dog-drawn sledge, which gave them quite a turn. When they rescued Victor from his bit of drifting pack-ice he was more or less raving – which is hardly surprising, as I’ve said before – and, after a short while, he too says: ‘Oh, dear’—and expires. (I make that a score of seven to the Monster.) But not before he’s told Captain Walton the whole miserable story. That’s how we know about it.

That’s about all, really… except to say that if the cold in the Arctic was pretty chilling, it wasn’t anywhere near as chilling as what the crew heard drifting over the pack-ice one day, just before they left for England.

The Monster could just be seen in the distance, doing something funny to a dead polar bear with an ice-pick, too…

11. Reprise: ANIMAL BIOLOGY (The Monster)

FRANKENSTEIN
I’ll study…

CHORUS

(*scratching vigorously)