Frankenstein: The Read with Alex Kingston | Preview (BBC Four)

Alex Kingston breathes life into Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece.

A young and gifted student, Victor Frankenstein, develops a secret technique to “infuse a spark of being” into lifeless matter - but his unorthodox scientific experiment backfires. His Creation is not the perfect specimen he imagines that it will be, but rather a hideous creature who is rejected by Victor and the world at large…

Written more than 200 years ago, and published when Mary Shelley was just 20, the story of Frankenstein and his monster still resonates today: a classic horror story and a tragic romance which examines the battle between ambition and morality.

This performance reading by Bafta-nominated Kingston is an abridgement which preserves the hard-hitting and politically charged aspects of Shelley's original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice.

A Rural Studios production for BBC Four and BBC iPlayer, airs Sunday 3rd March.