Young Frankenstein

Miranda’s Young Frankenstein is as spectacular as it is fun. The cast gets all the vaudeville, innuendo, double entendre, single entendre, and slapstick (or should that be schlappshtick?) absolutely right.

Following the success of The Producers, Mel Brooks looked around for another of his movies to turn into a mu$ical to put on $tage and $ettled on this. To give the show its proper title “The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein”, this is the stage musical adaptation of the original Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder film. It looks at what happens when Dr Frankenstein’s grandson – a doctor lecturing in New York – is called back to the family castle in Transylvania and persuaded to take up the “family business”. 

Whilst the show didn’t do so well on Broadway, it’s easy to see how YF can be popular amongst amateurs: there’s plenty of chorus work, lots of cameos, numbers that are easy to digest with choreography and harmony that is simple yet effective, and great scope for costumes and props.

And speaking of props and costumes, let my first bouquets go to Col Peet for his spectacular set and graphics in the backdrop, and James Worner for the hair and costumes. All were ably enhanced by Tim Dennis’s lights and David Betteridge’s sound. The scene where the creature is brought to life is eye-poppingly effective. And I must mention the beautiful violin solos from the orchestra.

The ensemble and cameos caught my eye and deserve praise. Set and costumes are nothing without a top notch ensemble that can create the scene and mood merely by character, and here they do just that; thanks to them I felt I was amongst the rabble of Transylvanian peasants or a New York wharf circa 1934. I especially loved a peasant lady who really looked like she knew how to handle her pitchfork as she left the stage late in Act 2. And the a cappella harmony from the village quartet was a highlight.

All the cameos are standouts: Tyler Hoggard’s Victor von Frankenstein, Tim Wotherspoon’s blind hermit, Wayne Thomas’s Inspector, Hayden Sip’s Ziggy the Village Idiot, and Nathan Farrow’s Baritone solos never upstage but always enhance the story and all truly earned the applause.

However, the night belonged to the four principals: Lachlan O’Brien as young Frankenstein (pronounced Fronkensteen) wisely kept away from Gene Wilder’s version and gave us a more manic Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom from The Producers version. Johnny Acosta as Igor (sorry, Eye-gor) was simply brilliant and lovable. Jess Farrell as lab assistant Inga captures innocence and coquette, with a nice homage to Basic Instinct, and Cheryl O’Brien’s Frau Blucher can make my horses neigh any time.  Watching these four is worth the price of admission alone.

My major problem is not with this production, but the way the show was adapted into a musical. There were many reasons why the Broadway version didn’t fare well, and the way it was put together could be one of them; sure, the Mel Brooks humour is intact but it felt like Brooks et al just did a “copy and paste” with the formula from The Producers. Rather than replacing scenes with songs, the scenes were left intact and songs were added, making this show feel like a fit kid who’s gone fat in a bad way. Excluding the eidetic material, all the songs could be cut without losing anything.  This approach works in those 1940s films where the plots were flimsy, but here it’s a case of, “well that was nice but can we get on with the show?”  Two of the Brooks routines (the charade on “sedative” and the hermit’s shtick in his cabin) were better off staying in the film.

Thankfully, this cast executes all the material with zing, so the routines don’t outwear their welcome. There was some lack of diction, enunciation, and projection brought on by keeping the pace moving, but this felt very much like an opening night thing.

Well worth seeing.

Peter Novakovich