Dracula – Sex, Sucking & Stardom

The boys from Last Chance Saloon may not yet be rivalling Robert Pattinson for a portion of his army of screaming fans, but as their natty take on the father of all blood suckers attests, they soon may be.

These boys have charm, and oodles of it. Don’t believe the slightly hokey promotional material (which looks like an irony free B-Movie poster) Dracula: Sex, Sucking and Stardom positively drips in knowing humour. This is a very cheerful carry on about Count Vlad and whilst the paper thin plot makes no pretensions to be anything other than that, the knockabout style is imaginative, at parts clever and most importantly, often very funny.

Sam Dunham, Jack Faires and Simon Naylor whirl us through the story of Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula and Van Helsing at a breakneck pace. Traditional comedy hooks are employed shamelessly (Naylor as a rather butch Mina is an expected but giggly revelation) but there is a lot of original subversion of this age old tale too. A stage struck Count who envies John Barrowman is a nice touch, as are the League of Gentlemen-style Transylvanian y’ocals who point Harker to Dracula’s pad.

The slapstick is smooth and jolly and I’m not even going to mention being sprayed by something wet and far reaching in the dark. Modern pop classics are altered mercilessly (“Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah. Rah, rah, Dracula” being a particular favourite) and audience involvement is flirted with prettily. Bram Stoker this isn’t, but prepare to be seduced by this delightfully makeshift comedy.

– Honour Bayes