Archive for category art/drama
HIGH VOLTAGE REVIEW
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/drama, Uncategorized on May 28, 2025
Mary Shelley’s gothic tale, Frankenstein isn’t exactly a bundle of laughs. Mary, it seems, didn’t do jokes. Fast forward 200 years or so to The Stretton Players Spring production of High Voltage, Chris Niblock’s reimagining of this classic tale and there were jokes aplenty delivered with perfect timing by a superb cast. There was plenty for the audience to feast their eyes on too with great costumes and set, not to mention Frankenstein’s resurrection machine!
Copies of the script are available from amazon price £5.00. Performance licences are also competitively priced. https://www.amazon.co.uk/High…/dp/1916108296/ref=sr_1
Any one interested in mounting a production of High Voltage can obtain a Pdf sample of the script by messaging me on this page or on my facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/CNibs The play is a comic retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Victor has journeyed to London where he plans to create a bride for his monster. In a cellar bar frequented by medical students, he meets Goth barmaid Greta who introduces him to a pair of unscrupulous grave robbers.
High Voltage
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/drama, Fiction on January 6, 2024
A reimagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein penned by Robin Glover
It’s dangerous to play with electricity or so they say, but that’s how Victor Frankenstein gets his kicks. He doesn’t care if it’s AC or DC as long as it delivers enough of a jolt. And it takes quite a jolt to put some life back into the dead!
It’s high jinks and even higher jolts all the way when Victor journeys to London to create a bride for his monster. No easy task when the groom looks like he stepped out of a Hammer Horror movie! But failure isn’t an option or Victor and his fiancee Elizabeth will find themselves on a mortuary slab. An acute shortage of female cadavers, a pair of incompetent grave-robbers and a series of shocks of the non-electrical kind, keep Victor in a spin right up to the final curtain,
Casting: 4 Women 5 Men (with doubling)
High Voltage is available from amazon.co.uk priced £5.00 https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Voltage-reimaging-Shelleys-Frankenstein/dp/1916108296/ref=sr_1
Note: Robin Glover is a pen name I use when writing adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and mashups of gothic classics.
Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/drama, Fiction on December 4, 2023
A gothic comedy based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde penned by Robin Glover
Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde is a monster mashup of fun at the expense of those gothic classics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the infamous real-life villain, Jack the Ripper. Yet amidst the murder and mayhem, below stairs romance blossoms between housemaid Molly and stable boy Jack. Above stairs too for Utterson’s nephew Dickie and heiress, Miss Lily Castleton.
Can Dr Jekyll overcome his nemesis, Edwina Hyde? Will inspector Asinine manage to arrest the right man? Can any of them survive the arrival of the Prince of Darkness and learn to dance the Monster Mash!
Casting: 4 Women 6 Men (with doubling)
Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde is available from amazon.co.uk priced £5.00 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dr-Jekyll-Mrs-Hyde-gothic/dp/1916108288/ref=sr_1
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) is perhaps best known for his novel Treasure Island, published in 1883. In it he created the classic pirate tale of buried treasure and a colourful collection of characters including: Long John Silver and the castaway, Ben Gunn and it has provided the template for all the pirate tales that have followed it.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886, is a bit of an oddity amongst Stevenson’s other tales of romance and adventure. A gothic novella about a kind and caring physician who, after drinking a drug intended to separate good from evil, inadvertently releases his psychopathic alter ego.
Note: Robin Glover is a pen name I use when writing adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and mashups of gothic classics.
Featured Painting: Pete Postlethwaite, actor
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/drama, Uncategorized on May 23, 2016
Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)
My portrait of the actor, Pete Postlethwaite was recently bought by the owners of The Green Dragon, Little Stretton, Shropshire and now hangs in the bar above the chair the actor used to sit in. Best known for his roles in films like; The Usual Suspects and Brassed Off, he was also an extremely accomplished stage actor.
Steven Spielberg called him “the best actor in the world” though he was far too modest a man to describe himself in those terms.
Featured Painting: Scaramouche Jones
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/drama on November 22, 2011
I was inspired to paint this after seeing Pete Postlethwaite perform the role of the eponymous clown in this one man show at Ludlow Assembly Rooms. It’s based on a publicity still for the show, but I decided to heighten the drama of the picture by adding a stronger background. Coincidently, a year or so later I found a buyer for the painting at the very same assembly rooms.
Scaramouche, a roguish clown character of the Italian Commedia dell’arte, also features in the popular song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. The name was originally that of a stock character who featured in 17th century Italian farce, in which another regular character named Harlequin would beat him for his bragging and for his cowardice.
Original artwork: oils on canvas copyright Chris Niblock
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Chris Niblock
A Stirring in the Blood
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A Kyndle in the Mynd 