A Vindication of Frankenstein’s Monster

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A Vindication of Frankenstein's Monster: Episode 1

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Episode 1

A Vindication of Frankenstein's Monster

BBC Radio 4 - A Vindication of Frankenstein's Monster, Episode 1

Linda Marshall Griffiths reimagines Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Lizzie McDowell is delving into the life and works of Mary Wollstonecraft in order to discover the essence of female consciousness.

What makes a woman free? Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft’s ground-breaking feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and moving into a radical re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), through to the contemporary world of AI, Linda Marshall Griffith's drama asks what would happen if a woman created a woman?

In the first episode of this three part drama Lizzie walks through Mary Wollstonecraft’s world at the end of the 18th Century and she has questions. Tracing Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life, she is challenged by her bravery, her incredible mind and her capacity to fall in love with the wrong men. But this is not time-travel, Lizzie is creating a Virtual Reality world at the centre of which is Mary Wollstonecraft. But as the ‘AI’ Wollstonecraft comes to life, trapped in her virtual world, she begins to question exactly what has changed for women more than two hundred years after the publication of her manifesto - have women achieved equality and freedom? And Lizzie, pregnant and recently diagnosed with an aneurysm, must decide whether to allow her life to be constrained by her health, her lover Max, her impending motherhood or whether to complete her work, following Wollstonecraft’s journey to Norway. 

Lizzie.....LYDIA WILSON
Mary.....DAISY HEAD
Max.....SACHA DHAWAN
Joseph/Talleyrand-Perigord/ Father.....ANDONIS ANTHONY  
Eliza/ Jane Austen/ Mother......ERIN SHANAGER 
Fuseli.....HARRY TAURASI 

Written by Linda Marshall Griffiths based on Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Sound design by Sharon Hughes
Production co-ordinators Vicky Moseley and Lorna Newman
Directed by Nadia Molinari

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Linda Marshall Griffiths reimagines Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft's ground-breaking feminist text on the rights of women, Linda Marshall Griffith's drama asks what would happen if a woman created a woman?

What makes a woman free? Starting with Mary Wollstonecraft's ground-breaking feminist text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and moving into a radical re-imagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), through to the contemporary world of AI, Linda Marshall Griffith's drama asks what would happen if a woman created a woman?

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