There’s every reason to doubt that splicing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with The Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen Is Dead could produce anything viable, let alone something capable of pleasing devotees of either. It sounds like a gimmick courting collapse. Pete Shelley, sure. But Mary?

Happily, Big Mouth Strikes Again crackles with life. Powered by the electrifying presence of New York cabaret star Salty Brine, the show is fast-moving, sharp-witted and gleefully monstrous – a stitched-together creation that not only lives, but struts.

Salty Brine: Big Mouth Strikes Again. Photo © Wendell Teodoro

Part of Brine’s Living Record Collection suite (previously tackling albums by The Beatles, Weezer, Harry Nilsson and Adele), Big Mouth interweaves the tragedy-strewn contours of Shelley’s life with Brine’s own formative adventures – mostly sexual, often comic. These narratives bleed into songs from The Queen Is Dead.

In contrast, almost nothing is said of Smiths lyricist Morrissey or his life – recognition perhaps that his pronouncements on immigration and race have put him beyond the pale.