But surely not as modern as this.

Director Pat Upton has lifted the famous gothic tale of a man-made monster out of it's 19th century setting into an indefinite 20th century period. And it just doesn't work.

We have Sue Orme as a too-young mother of researching scientist Victor Frankenstein looking as though she's out of a 1990's fashion magazine;

Tracy Hanson as his fiancee in Sound of Music costume; Chris Nixon as police inspector from a 1950's who-dun-it; while Richard Stevenson as raving Frankenstein in purple shirt and Robert Potts as his assistant in beige defy dating.

Only Steve Coley as the creature breathes any believable life. And he is great. He's tall and strong, large hands hanging outwards at his sides, deliberate but strangely gentle in speech, superior yet evoking pity. This is a fine performance.

It is a good adaptation, holding fairly closely to the novel - except in its ending - and just like the creature's appearance, it is nothing like any of the film versions.

It is generally well performed but all is quite negated by the modern setting which makes nonsense of the plot, its medical science and its morals.

- Geoff Hammerton