REVIEW:

Blood and Ice

Chesil Theatre, Winchester

LIZ Lochhead's dramatisation of the circumstances under which Mary Shelley (Eleanor Marsden) wrote 'Frankenstein', came to edit her dead husband Percy's poetic works and launch her own writing career (next novel, 'The Last Man') begins rather tamely - with Mary playing Wendy to rapacious 'lost boy' poets Shelley (Tom Maggs, very sympathetic) and Byron (Tom Dangerfield, engaging but perhaps a little too boyish and, frankly, not club footed enough), with Claire Clairmont (Joanna Russel) almost reduced to becoming the Tinkerbell of the group.

However, the mood soon changes, with the tragedies, the stirrings of Mary's conscience, literary imagination and subconscious represented in part (thanks to fine teamwork from Director Alec Walters, set, lighting and sound Designers Duncan Wilson, David James and Tony Rogers, to name but a few) by appearances of 'the creature'.

In such august company, debut performer Zoe Hare does well as dazzled, devoted and ambitious maid Elise.

Ham Quentin