Royal Ballet Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett presents his first full-length work for the main stage. Mary Shelley’s classic forms the basis of a three-act ballet to interpret the famous story anew.

The Royal Ballet’s Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett has become known for ballets that marry highly expressive movement, sophisticated musical response and dark psychological depth – in such works for The Royal Ballet as Asphodel Meadows, Sweet Violets and The Age of Anxiety on the main stage and Hansel and Gretel in the Linbury Studio Theatre. Now he creates his first full-length work for the main stage with Frankenstein, a period adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic tale of morality and our craving for love, companionship and understanding.

For this new work Scarlett has assembled a number of regular collaborators. American composer Lowell Liebermann, whose First Piano Concerto provides the music for Scarlett’s Viscera, composes a new score. John Macfarlane (Asphodel Meadows, Sweet Violets, The Age of Anxiety) creates the designs, while David Finn provides lighting design.

Victor Frankenstein is sent away to university, away from his family and his closest friend Elizabeth. Just before he leaves, his mother dies in childbirth. Distraught, Victor throws himself into his studies, learning obsessively all that he can from his Professor. Fuelled by his experiments and in a desperate hope to find a way to bring his mother back, Victor works furiously, and eventually succeeds in giving life to non-living matter – but, horrified at what he has done, Victor abandons his Creation.