Personally I missed both the play and it's livebroadcast at the Vue Cinema near my house (*Annoyed Sigh*), but I did catch Cumberbatch's performance in the play 'Rhinoceros' in his pre-'Sherlock' days. He was good then too.
Of what I've been able to see of his Frankenstein role though, it has given me renewed appreciation for Paradise Lost, with the above quote being from when Lucifer awakens at the bottom of a burning lake in Hell having just been cast out from Heaven...
Here's the speech in full,
“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?–this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor–one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”
Whoever said that poetry was all about romance and flowers clearly wasn't paying attention.
From here, though I do have the book.
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