I, Victor – Old Red Lion Theatre, London

Writer: Issy Flower

Directors: Issy Flower and Jacob Freda

The most important thing to note here is that the entire runtime of I, Victor comes in under an hour. Do you really need to know anything else about it? Even if you hate it, what have you lost? Leaving the theatre at 8:15, you’d still have time to enjoy a lengthy three-course meal, or even a stint of comedy down the road at the Bill Murray.

But as it happens, it’s also meaty and succinct; a near perfect Halloween playlet, full of blood and gore, and gripping obsession. A fitting show for Grimfest.

Vic lives in a town not her own, and once a week she goes out to clubs, looking for an ideal physical specimen to take home, have sex with, and chop up for parts. This queer, modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein manifests the desperation that comes with loss, and its ability to drive a person to fierce madness.

Playing Vic, Phoebe Cresswell is endearing and creepy in equal measure. At 21 her character thinks she knows everything, and Cresswell does well to temper pretentiousness with clueless naivety, keeping the audience on side.

This is pretty much a one-woman play, except that it’s not, because in the last 10 minutes co-director Jacob Freda wonders on stage for a bit-part, which makes the otherwise singular cast seem like a decision, rather than a financial necessity, as is often the case. Freda is perfectly good, and could well have played other bit parts, but the choice to leave the stage empty, save for Cresswell, further emphasises the feeling of aloneness in Vic’s rich, macabre inner world.

Writer Issy Flower skilfully walks the line between gothic drama and comic realism, and whilst the very ending feels a little half-done – the plot is fine, but the execution is heavy handed – it doesn’t really matter because, as is worth repeating, this is a 45-minute show. And as with a good short story, it doesn’t have to be entirely finished, the point is simply to give the audience a concentrated taste of an idea, and I, Victor is full of big, bold flavour.

Runs until 19 October, part of Grimfest until 5 November