THE magnificently titled Frankenstein's Monster is Drunk and the Sheep Have All Jumped the Fences is the must-see show of the Belfast International Arts Festival.
Big Telly Theatre Company's adaptation of Owen Booth's short story is clever, funny and moving. It's also cheeringly European in its theatrical approach.
The fourth wall is thoroughly pushed, and at one point the audience is handed bingo papers for a game. What's it all about, you might ask? It is an exploration of what it means to be the outsider and makes you think of texts like Kafka's The Metamorphosis, although this is a lot funnier.
We first hear the female side of this love story as our heroine, soon to be Mrs Monster, talks about her giant status. She was always taller than her class and most men.
Sadly, she reveals she has been ostracised by the villagers, yet apparently enjoys a healthy love life. Nicky Harley is engaging, sad, believable. But this isn't good old Western naturalism, so the fantasy element rapidly creeps in. And this is satisfyingly horrific.
We learn about the giant, dead for over 100 years and discovered in the glacier up the mountain. He wakes up and is said to have been "stitched together from a hundred body parts" of corpses. This is thought to lend him perspective.
By now, the audience is prepared to accept anything in this Grimm tale. And the Monster's perspective provides us with marvellous sequences in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Rhodri Lewis gives a big performance in every sense. His repeated recall of the fling with Elsa Lanchester, the Bride of Frankenstein, works very well. The multi-roling is also first class. Chris Robinson, whose turn as an EasyJet steward is a thing of beauty, does ordinary when required and the awkward, Alan Ayckbourn-ish dinner party when Mr and Mrs Monster are integrating is delicious.
Vicky Allen also turns in a memorable performance as the village wife, inter alia, and some of the dance and movement sequences under Zoe Seaton's direction are mesmerising.
Seaton's adaptation of Booth's short story has remained faithful to the original, although Big Telly threw in the bingo, and it's one of the most entertaining things I have seen for a long time. There's even a deft Spike Milligan moment.
But it is sad too and although our larger than life couple marry and are happy, all things come to an end. She dies in an accident, he is left alone in the armoire which is used as their home.
In fact, the Monster builds a contented relationship with the old piece of furniture that he and his wife originally didn't value. As we're told, "He wasn't overall unhappy".
Frankenstein's Monster is Drunk, playing next in London and New York, is slightly weird but totally wonderful. In fact, the only thing missing was the 67 sheep.
:: Until Saturday October 22 at Belfast International Arts Festival. The Brian Friel Theatre, QUB
