This weekend, tune into BBC Four to watch a unique and gripping film that combines beatbox with theatre. A re-imagined version of Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster will be screening, just in time for Halloween.
Battersea Arts Centre’s original musical film, Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster, has been created with BAC Beatbox Academy. The film will receive its world premiere as part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine on Sunday 25th October.
The film will build on the success of the live production, which offered audiences a gripping, one-of-a-kind theatre-beatbox hybrid. Now, this production has been re-imagined for the small screen, ready for Halloween.
Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster
200 years after the 18-year-old Mary Shelley wrote the text, six young artists bring their own interpretation of the Frankenstein story to life, using vocals including rap, beatboxing and song. The cast create the film’s musical soundscape with just one instrument, their voices.
Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster follows six talented performers who interpret Mary Shelley’s classic novel from their own perspective; as young people growing up in 21st-century Britain. They explore how today’s society creates its own monsters.
Re-inventing Shelley’s original, these young artists fuse contemporary and universal themes – such as isolation, pressure to conform and demonising people based on class and race – with creative beats, soundscapes and raw rhythmic storytelling.
BAC Beatbox Academy
BAC Beatbox Academy is Battersea Arts Centre’s home-grown young performance collective for artists aged eight to 29 years. Since its inception in 2008, BAC Beatbox Academy has pro-actively engaged harder to reach groups in areas of significant deprivation in Wandsworth.
Over the past 12 years, the Academy has been nurturing rising talent and pushing the boundaries of sound and music. The production of Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster has developed the cast from a collective of local participants into highly-accomplished performers and music leaders.
So, if you’re looking for something different to do this Halloween, get ready for a unique take on Frankenstein! For more alternative Halloween events, take a look at these.
When: 25th October 2020, 11pm (and available on iPlayer for 30 days)
Where: BBC Four and on iPlayer
£: Free
More info: bac.org.uk/frankenstein
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