Special Note: The films are all high-definition screenings, not live performances!

**Screening Version:** Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature.

Based on the classic 1818 novel by Mary Shelley

Directed by Academy Award-winning director and London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony Director Danny Boyle

Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller jointly won the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Actor

**National Theatre Live Presents**

***Frankenstein***

(In English with Chinese subtitles)

**Director:** Danny Boyle
**Writers:** Nick Dear / Mary Shelley (based on the novel)

**Starring:**
Benedict Cumberbatch
Jonny Lee Miller
Alternating in the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature

*Frankenstein* is directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternating as scientist Victor Frankenstein and the monstrous creature he brings to life. For their extraordinary performances in this production, both Cumberbatch and Miller jointly won the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Actor.

The protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is a scholar of the life sciences who strives to create life artificially. After countless experiments in his laboratory, he creates a hideous, grotesque monster, the Creature. Initially, the Creature is kind-hearted, filled with goodwill and gratitude toward humanity. He demands from his creator and from others the basic rights of a human being, even requesting the creation of a female companion. However, when met with revulsion and discrimination from his creator and society, he experiences immense anguish. He grows to hate everything, seeks to destroy everything, murders Frankenstein's younger brother William, and later attempts to murder Frankenstein's fiancée, Elizabeth. Consumed by fury, Frankenstein pursues the demonic monster he has created. In the final struggle, both Frankenstein and the Creature perish together.

First performed at the National Theatre in 2011, the production was a sensation, selling out every performance. The idea for Cumberbatch and Miller to swap roles as Frankenstein and the Creature came from director Danny Boyle. "The way the creation starts to imitate his creator is crucial to the whole narrative. He is born good but learns evil. They are distorted mirrors of each other, like a pair of photocopies," Boyle explained. "I just wanted two dangerously good actors with no fear."

This story remains remarkably prescient today. Mary Shelley's vision—that human beings possess a dual nature, good and evil, and that prolonged rejection, discrimination, and persecution can turn someone monstrous—infuses this thrilling classic Gothic tale with urgent questions about scientific responsibility, parental neglect, the development of consciousness, and the very nature of good and evil.