In version 1 of this NT Live performance of Frankenstein, Benedict Cumberbatch will play The Creature and Jonny Lee Miller will play Dr Frankenstein. (July 6 and 8).

I followed nature into her lair, and stripped her of her secrets! I brought torrents of light to a darkening world! Is that wrong?

Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.

For the first time ever, National Theatre Live will broadcast two separate performances of a production. Throughout the run of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller are alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. Audiences in cinemas will have the chance to see both combinations.

All I ask is the possibility of love!

Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is adapted for the stage by Nick Dear and realised by Danny Boyle in his return to the theatre after winning the Academy Award for best director for Slumdog Millionaire.

Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.