Bonkers. Utterly bonkers. But entertainingly so.

Cheryl Campbell’s wildly eccentric Lady Renfield doesn’t care for pale people. Neither, it would appear, does director Eduard Lewis and adaptor and writer Jenny King (who recently produced Pressure and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for Touring Consortium Theatre Company) in that the characters and performance styles of the 14-strong cast are as far from pale as you could possibly imagine. Think Carry On Up The Castle.

A deliberately comedic tone which is established in the opening scene at a Yorkshire train station when Olivia Swann’s alluring Mina Murray bids adieu to Andrew Horton’s strait-laced and Transylvania-bound Jonathan Harker with a titter-inducing warning not to drink the water – unless it’s boiled. A health concern not shared by the self-confessed lunatic Lady R who with girlish glee sucks up the tale of a mouse as if it was a string of spaghetti, along with spiders, flies and here kitty-kitty kittens.

Big D doesn’t make his dramatic boo-hiss appearance until after a series of short, snappily paced scenes which set out a number of Harker’s journal entries ending with hospitalisation with “brain fever”, Lady R’s barking but prescient predictions about evil traveling fast and Doctor Seward’s (Evan Milton’s) unreciprocated love for Lucy (a radiant Jessica Webber); but when he does the handsome Glen Fox glides across the smoke-filled stage as if on ice, his sharp tongue and even sharper teeth savouring each exotic bordering on erotic proclamation. A heightened vocal and physical style matched by the entire cast under the movement choreography of Sara Green.

With stark lighting by Ben Cracknell and a discordant score by Paul Ewing, the technical aspects of the production, together with some nifty special effects by illusionist Ben Hart, add to the suspense and otherworldliness of Bram Stoker’s Gothic gorefest which continues to thrill audiences some 120 years after its initial publication. Though the wheeling on and off of a podium ladder and frequent moving of chess piece-like pillars were at times cumbersome. As was the unnecessary burst of rain towards the play’s climax which added little and ceased as quickly as it started.

Minor grumbles in a otherwise entertaining romp which judging by the radiant smiles of the cast during the curtain call is as enjoyable to perform as it is to behold. Altogether now: fangs for the memories!

Peter Callaghan
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