Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (NHB Modern Plays)

An eighteen year-old girl, Mary Shelley, dreams up a monster whose tragic story will capture the imaginations of generations to come.

A young scientist by the name of Frankenstein breathes life into a gruesome body. Banished into an indifferent world, Frankenstein's creature desperately seeks out his true identity, but the agony of rejection and a broken promise push him into darkness. Dangerous and vengeful, the creature threatens to obliterate Frankenstein and everyone he loves, in a ferocious and bloodthirsty hunt for his maker.

Rona Munro's brilliant adaptation of Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece places the writer herself amongst the action as she wrestles with her creation and with the stark realities facing revolutionary young women, then and now.

'An inventive feminist adaptation... an exploration and celebration of female creativity' - The Stage

Auteur

Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including the award-winning plays The James Plays trilogy (National Theatre of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain), Iron (Traverse Theatre and Royal Court, London), Bold Girls (7:84 and Hampstead Theatre) and The Maiden Stone (Hampstead Theatre).

Other credits include adaptations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Louis de Bernières' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Scuttlers for Manchester's Royal Exchange, The Last Witch for the Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival, Long Time Dead for Paines Plough and the Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Indian Boy and Little Eagles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Pandas for the Traverse in Edinburgh. She is the co-founder, with actress Fiona Knowles, of Scotland's oldest continuously performing, small-scale touring theatre company, The Msfits. Their one-woman shows have toured every year since 1986.

Film and television work includes the Ken Loach film Ladybird Ladybird, Aimee and Jaguar and television dramas Rehab (directed by Antonia Bird) and BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. She has also written many other single plays for television and contributed to series including Casualty and Dr Who. Most recently, she wrote the screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving.

She has contributed several radio plays to the Stanley Baxter Playhouse series on BBC Radio 4.