Review: Dracula At The Lyric Hammersmith

Set largely in the shadows — of English graveyards, of Transylvanian castles, of storm-tossed ships at night — the Lyric Hammersmith's new adaptation of Dracula is a show with plenty of autumnal chill.

Both a reframing of Bram Stoker's tale, and a sequel to it, this version — scripted by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, directed by Emma Baggott — drops the audience into the latest stop on a lecture series delivered by Mina Harker, sometime after the events of the book.

Out in the night, Mina tells us, unimaginable dangers lurk — and maybe they've breached the safety of the theatre too. It's the start of a fourth-wall-obliterating hour and 45 minutes, the story unfolding as part cautionary tale, part re-enactment, and centring the women of the novel: Mina (Umi Myers) and Lucy (Mei Mac).  

In the novel their characters often become little more than a cipher for innocence violated, or the corruption of purity; the play focuses on Mina and Lucy's desires and fears, and complicates the ideas of innocence, salvation, and just what women (Victorian or otherwise) might have reason to fear more than corruption.

It's a compelling place to start, delivering a sense of creeping peril via a tautly choreographed mix of jumpscares, suppressed desires threatening to burst their banks, and quietly-chilling moments of Gothic-coded horror. But the play struggles under the weight of its desire to spell out the exact meaning of everything that happens, with themes and character dynamics often explained in monologues that feel like they should come with In Case You Missed It captions. It can have the effect of making the actual action of the play — which includes a couple of great performances, most of all Mei Mac as Lucy — feel more like marginalia.

Ultimately this is still an enjoyably sinister play to hurl yourself into the Halloween spirit with. It could just do with more time spent baring its teeth, and less spent telling you about them.

Dracula at Lyric Hammersmith. Runs till 11 October. Tickets from £15

You might also like another potent mix of jumpscares and slowly chilling suspense from Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre.