Joseph Morpurgo @ Pleasance Courtyard

High-concept specialist Joseph Morpurgo has stitched together a pleasingly clever take on the Frankenstein story and charged it with plenty of po-mo electrickery. The show starts at the end of a solo performance of Mary Shelley’s shocker as its highly-strung creator tumbles on stage for a post-play Q&A. Morpurgo plays the diva with a nice sense of self-deprecation and excellent comic timing as he interacts with a pre-programmed audience and an increasingly complex set of video cues as fans tune in to chat.

The show is technically impressive, even though several sections do go awry. But Morpurgo is charming enough to get over these hitches and maintains a lightness through all the heavy meta. If he doesn’t quite reach the peak of mad invention he’s aiming for, it’s because the show’s final third gets stuck in a repetitive rut with questions continuing to fly at him from the farthest corners of the internet. And while it doesn’t go as far off the rails as it should, neither does it draw quite enough from the Frankenstein story to warrant its choice as the text he’s playing with.

A late attempt to add some heart to the otherwise amusing creature he’s made doesn’t quite bring the crackle of life it might have were it transplanted with a little more care.

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Joseph Morpurgo: Hammerhead, Pleasance Courtyard (Two), 2-28 Aug (not 14), 8pm, £8-12