Dracula Archives - North West End UK

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Liverpool Playhouse

25Oct

By Hannah EsnoufNo Comments

North West

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Liverpool Playhouse

This play lends itself perfectly to the spooky season. Aberdeen Performing Arts and the National Theatre of Scotland have created a uniquely adapted tale from the late 19th Century. Dreamlike Scottish folk music swaddles you into the world of the play, where the audience held their breaths about what might happen. Scottish culture is not in the mainstream theatrical circuit, so it was educational as well as entertaining for the audience. The way that this production was adapted by Morna Pearson from Bram Stoker’s American story, with detail, humour and a real sense of world building, meant the audience really bought the world of Aberdeen’s hospital for women and the characters in it. Lighting (Aideen Malone) and sound (Fraser Mackie) were parts of the production that I really enjoyed...

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Theatre Royal Glasgow

15Sep

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning – Theatre Royal Glasgow

It seems to be, for no particular reason, a big year for Dracula. It isn't the anniversary of its first publication, of the author's birth, the author's death, or of any of its most famous adaptations - apologies, uberfans of The Satanic Rites of Dracula, happy 50th to you - and yet this year we have seen two cinematic depictions of Dracula (the Nicholases Hoult and Cage film Renfield and the adaptation of a single chapter of the original novel with The Last Voyage of the Demeter), with another remake of Nosferatu also being shot this year (and also starring Nicholas Hoult). And of course, latest but not leastest, there is Dracula: Mina's Reckoning, from the National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen Performing Arts, in association with Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. As its title clearly st...

28Mar

By Louise PennNo Comments

London

Dracula – Richmond Theatre

When actor James Gaddas received an offer to work on a television documentary exploring the origins of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it sent him into an obsessive investigation to discover the truth behind the myth. Such is the premise of this new adaptation, in which Gaddas is not only the writer but performer of fifteen different characters. Bringing Stoker’s novel to life is something many others have done from the days of the silent screen: if you haven’t read the book, you have surely seen one of the film, television or stage adaptations. But what if Stoker had really meant to write a work of non-fiction about vampiric activity, and what if an investigation into his real intentions is cursed? As Gaddas tells the story of his interaction with documentary evidence and a trail which takes...

Dracula: The Untold Story – Liverpool Playhouse

14Oct

By Carole BaldockNo Comments

North West

Dracula: The Untold Story – Liverpool Playhouse

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and here we are on Route 66 (or should that be 666?), since that's their year (read on...), and a young lady has just walked into a police station to confess to murder. But she says her name is Mina Harker... And goodness, can she name drop - an affair with Picasso? And literally, because many of the people she encounters hit the deck. But is she as it were victim turned vigilante, seeking to rid the world of evil? Or does Dracula actually have a hand in this, not that the title isn't a dead giveaway. Yet having slayed Dracula, she is seemingly possessed by him. Mina travels the world hunting down the people from her nightmares who are plotting some kind of uprising. The police officers are bewildered by the murder of unknowns (keep rea...

Dracula: The Untold Story – Leeds Playhouse

4Oct

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Dracula: The Untold Story – Leeds Playhouse

For over a century Count Dracula has been part of our popular culture so it’s smart of imitating the dog to make him a peripheral figure in his own play. Instead, they cleverly switch the focus to Mina Harker who in Bram Stoker’s gothic classic not only had her neck bitten but pulled together all the threads to create the myth of the immortal Transylvanian bloodsucker. They’ve also updated the story to 1965 as Harker walks into a London police station confessing a murder to two police officers, and we learn that she has used her immortal superhuman power for what she thinks is the greater good as the Count lurks around the piece as the embodiment of eternal darkness. As usual the team deploys a wide range of high-tech digital tricks, including two video cameras and stage side gree...

26Sep

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

Interviews

imitating the dog take on the undead

Nobody ever accused imitating the dog of not being ambitious but in Dracula: The Untold Story they are taking on one of the world’s biggest cultural icons. Typically, they are twisting the timeless classic to look at the Transylvanian prince of the undead from a totally new perspective. As well as the usual innovative visuals they have become famous for over the last two decades this co-production with Leeds Playhouse will use the stage to create a live graphic novel. Our Yorkshire Editor Paul Clarke spoke to imitating the dog’s co-artistic director Andrew Quick to find how they are reimagining Bram Stoker’s classic tale of Count Dracula’s bloodlust. This might be your biggest challenge as Dracula is such an iconic figure to virtually everyone on the planet. You’re right,...

Casting announced for Dracula: The Untold Story

9Jun

By Paul ClarkeNo Comments

NEWS

Casting announced for Dracula: The Untold Story

Leeds Playhouse and imitating the dog have announced the casting for their premiere of Dracula: The Untold Story. It’s a typically radical new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic gothic horror novel told from the perspective of Mina Harker, the novel’s heroine. Leona Allen will play Mina Harker joined by Matt Prendergast and Adela Rajnović who play all the other roles. Just before midnight on New Year's Eve in 1965, as revellers in London celebrate the beginning of another year, a young woman enters Marylebone Police Station and confesses to a brutal murder. She claims to be Mina Harker, the last living survivor of the intrepid group that brought about Count Dracula’s destruction some 70 years before. But Mina Harker has not been seen since 1901. And if she were alive, she woul...

imitating the dog take on the Prince of Darkness

30Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

imitating the dog take on the Prince of Darkness

imitating the dog are back with a radical new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula telling this gothic classic from the perspective of the novel’s heroine Mina Harker. Written and directed by imitating the dog’s co-artistic directors Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, Dracula: The Untold Story will open at Leeds Playhouse from 25th Sept – 9th Oct ahead of a UK tour. New Year’s Eve 1965, London, England. Just before midnight, as revellers celebrate the beginning of another year, a young woman enters Marylebone Police Station and confesses to a brutal murder. She claims to be Mina Harker, the last living survivor of the intrepid group that brought about Count Dracula’s destruction some 70 years before. But Mina Harker has not been seen since 1901, and if she were alive she would be ninety...