![]() ![]() Why were they compelled to spook one another? It’s a tempting speculation that the darkness of the heavens had something to do with it. Frankenstein and his Creature swiftly became standard characters for Victorian theatre productions while Polidori’s Vampyre, inspired literarily and personally by Byron, set the template for the suave, aristocratic bloodsucker popularized by Bram Stoker. Polidori composed a sinister tale of an undead aristocrat while Mary Shelley, then aged 17, came up with an account of the misadventures of a pathologically intense medical student who stitches together a collection of cadaverous limbs and gives the resultant “Creature” life. John Polidori, decided to compete to see who could tell the spookiest stories. The well to-do set, which included Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, his wife Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley and Byron-wannabe, Dr. For one particular group, taking a break in Geneva, there was no choice but to take refuge indoors and make their own entertainment. Crops failed, rural populations starved, and in 1816 it rained ‘incessantly,’ creating misery for holidaymakers in Europe. The climatic effects were felt for years. The term nuclear winter, while perhaps more evocative, does not even come close. ![]() The cold, dark months that followed were then called ‘the year without a summer.’ It’s known as a volcanic winter. Now, you don’t fire that much helldust into the sky without a little fallout. Sulphur of a volume equivalent to 25 or 30 Great Pyramids was ejected into the sky above Indonesia and from there, spread around the globe. Furthermore, certain crossovers, such as that between Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1898) would alarm chronological purists who may, if they wanted to be all smart-arse about it, point out that it would be like trying to mix Harry Potter with Tarzan. Comparisons with Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton family, the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Universal’s horror films are inevitable, as are charges that it is not merely derivative of earlier works, but also of works that were themselves derivative. The show’s success lies in its thrilling blend of disparate figures from the 19th century, who have been re-purposed and stirred up into an odd Gothic soup. We may not be looking for the source of the Nile (located, contrary to the show’s assertion, in 1862), but there is nevertheless some treacherous terrain ahead. “When you see a river,” says Sir Malcolm Murray from behind his excellent Victorian beard, “you must follow it to its source.” Now that Penny Dreadfulhas arrived on DVD and Blu-ray, we have as good an opportunity as ever to do just that and explore the sources of its characters and themes. ![]()
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