A Vindication of Frankenstein's Monster

Drama of the Week

Episode 1 of 3

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 Artificial Intelligence, Linda Marshall Griffiths' 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

A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4