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Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors (Menier Chocolate Factory, London) - ★★★ REVIEW
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Miki Jo
Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Oh, that's much better. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theater themed YouTube channel. My name is Miki Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic as well as a content creator here on social media, usually based in the uk, making frequent trips to New York and elsewhere around the world to see as much theatre as possible. And sometimes interesting things happen. For example, a comedy play that I first saw in New York I then have the chance to see again in London, which is exact earlier this week when Dracula, a comedy of terrors, made its way to the Menier Chocolate Factory. So this was an off Broadway play. I saw it at New World Stages. It is now here in London. James Patrick Daly reprising his performance as Dracula. And this is an interesting one, especially in the modern age of theatre, because much of the show's momentum seems to be as a result of its marketing, going pretty viral on social media during the New York run, which by all accounts got extended far beyond its initial Halloween adjacent booking period. But with more shows heading from Off Broadway to London and it's happening a lot very recently, this Titanique White Rose over at the Marylebone Hell, even the since transferred to Broadway, O Mary seems to be eyeing up a London run in the not too distant future. It begs the question, do we actually have the audiences here in London for these kind of wacky, slightly more risque late night comedy shows? And is their arrival going to fundamentally shift something in West End theatre going culture? After all, many of New York's audiences are perfectly happy to see a 90 minute show and then go out for dinner and drinks afterwards. That's not really something culturally which happens here and you'd be surprised the extent to which that has a real impact on the type of theater that we like to see. But of course our main focus today is actually on the show itself. What is Dracula a comedy of terrors and is it any good? Do the show's new British cast members offer bloody good laughs or is the whole thing doomed for all eternity? That is what we will be discussing in today's full review. If you enjoy this one, make sure to subscribe to my theater themed YouTube channel and turn on those notifications so that YouTube lets you know every time I have shared a new review, theater news or anything else that I care to put on the Internet. Alternatively, if it is easier for you to listen to my voice, then you can also find me on podcast platforms. Make sure you are following me there. And finally, if you have seen A comedy of terrors either off Broadway or here in London. Let us know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. In the meantime, here are my thoughts. So Dracula, a comedy of Terrors, as its title may suggest, is a parody of the Brat Bram Stoker Dracula Story, co written by Steve Rosen and Gordon Greenberg, who also directs, which shines a little bit of light on how the show has made it to the Minier Chocolate Factory in London, ostensibly a very different type of a venue to New World Stages in New York. But Gordon has worked on multiple productions previously at the Menier, including the very recent production of the Baker's Wife. And it's also not entirely unfounded because we've seen wacky sort of parody comedy at this venue before and that is exactly what this is. It feels very much akin to the world of mischief theater shows who, if you don't know, know are the brilliant and hilarious minds behind the play that goes wrong. And comedy about a bank robbery and their upcoming show, the comedy about spies and all of those, as well as long running comedy productions like the 39 steps. There are many aspects in terms of the way that this is directed, the way that this is staged that feel familiar of those. A lot of visual comedy, even at the very beginning with these characters coming out holding these books that they toss behind their heads as they announce that this version of Dracula is going to be considerably shorter than the novel, and then carrying on with these yellow prop eyes that they hold and a comic bumpy carriage ride perpetrated on some chairs with the young and naive Mr. Jonathan Harker, reconceived here as a real estate agent, going to meet with a particularly wealthy and mysterious client, Count Dracula, who has just acquired multiple properties in London. It isn't until he sees a picture of Jonathan's fiance, however, that he becomes entranced and singularly focused on going to win her love and also her neck. And listen, who among us hasn't felt that way at one point or another in their lives? You know how it is. You're young, you're passionate, you see a particularly defined clavicle and you think to yourself, my God, I bet their blood tastes fantastic. There's actually a particularly great joke here in the script, and I don't want to spoil too many of these lines for you, but Dracula comments to Jonathan that Lucy in her picture looks like she might be a B positive, and he replies that she's always been quite the optimist, which is pretty much the height of the wit that we attain A couple more words. On the visual comedy with which the thing is staged, one of the best gags is the repeated use of sprayed mist to create fog. Never used more effectively than when it is punctuating the very first entrance of Dracula, played by James Daly, reprising his performance from New York here in London. And his arrival is really the first clue that this is going to be a different take on Dracula, that it's not just this mischief 39 steps esque, parody, silly, multi rolling version of the story, that there's another dimension to this. Because just beforehand we've had that whole carriage ride sequence, we've already seen actors, you know, like comedy, beard, playing a different gender, stuff we've seen on stage comedically before in a lot of these shows. That whole carriage sequence feels not unlike something out of Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein. But when James Daly is silhouetted in that entrance in the middle of the stage looking like a 12ft tall Abercrombie model with quaffed blonde hair, leather trousers and a sleeveless button up sheer lace shirt, it's clear that we're also doing a version of Dracula that is a little more contemporary and a little more queer. And in truth, those are aspects of it that I wish we leaned more into. Because that first entrance of Dracula is where we really accelerate to something more exciting. And every gag really lands when he is on stage. It's when we lose him. And it goes back to being just another parody comedy because the other characters aren't quite as updated to the same anachronistic modern sense that it gets a little bit less exciting to me. And that brings us, I guess, to my biggest complaint about this admittedly very nice and very funny production. I enjoy this. I don't know that I needed to see it even a second time in my lifetime because it's admittedly very funny. But in its best moments, it indicates to you the better version of itself, that it could be something that is a little more overtly queer throughout, that speaks to that more consistently, that's a little more wild, that's a little sexier even. It's the moments where it's been infused with a contemporary energy that I think it's at its best. And I understand just putting that in the character of Dracula and not in any of the others, because he represents a different lifestyle and he is so foreign to them in multiple senses and he represents hedonism. And so having them all be slightly more classic interpretations of these characters, but goofy and animated and ridiculous, and having him be the one who you know, is walking around with headphones on and spraying his own fog for his entrances and sipping on blood out of a little like hospital blood bag and making jokes about duty free savings being disappointingly minimal. Like I understand where that comes from in a character sense, but it's also the best material and when we lose him, it weirdly resembles a little too closely a pre traditional production of the Dracula story. I just think too much of the best comedy on his shoulders and they find funny in other places. There is a lot of cross dressing, which I think made more sense to me in New York than it does here in London. I think the way that those performances were, it just came across a little better. And it's done with equal opportunity because you have Diane Pilkington here playing almost entirely male roles. And you have Sebastian Torquier opposite her playing almost entirely female roles with a bit of a wild romance arising between the 2 in the second act. This because one of Diane Pilkington's characters, sort of the main one that she portrays, is Dr. Westfeldt, the father of Jonathan's intended Lucy and her nymphomaniac sister Mina, who is unlucky in love. While Sebastian Torchier, for the most part when he isn't playing Mina, plays Van Helsing, conceived here as a female character who does not take kindly to Dr. Westfeldt's misogynistic remarks and lack of faith in her abilities. It won't surprise you then that the two are ultimately impressed with each other and begin about a later in life romance. But you also have to question how funny would this material be if it wasn't being done by a woman in a bald cap and a man in a wig? Now, in terms of changes that they've made from New York to London, there are a small handful of specifically British cultural references that have been peppered throughout. Janet Street Porter gets a mention and sort of catches Strays. Mina, the character, also catches Strays while on her deathbed. That's hilarious. And there is a line, and I can't remember what the location was for the original production, but I guess the punchline is about having a timeshare property in a laughably really terrible place to go. And I will let you guess the British location that they use for this punchline in this production. Where is the worst place that you would want to have a timeshare? Which is a hilarious cultural update in and of itself because we don't really say timeshare. I also think by and large the British audience is a little less Broadway stagey. I liked the chorus line choreography moment. I don't know to what extent it landed with everyone. It doesn't really need to, it's just sort of in passing. But what does work is the slight shift in, for example, Sebastian Torquier's performance, where some of his characterisations almost moved towards the pantomime. It almost lived in a panto realm, which I feel is a really reliable touchstone for a lot of these comedies. A lot of the more absurd comedies coming over to the uk, trying to grasp at a sense of, you know, what we enjoy comedically. Titanique spoke about this as a reference point with the way that the show worked in terms of audience engagement and the ad lib and a lot of its structure. And interestingly, there are a couple of witty little repetitive comedy moments in the script and in the staging that felt familiar of pantomime. There's one moment where the characters are walking round and round the stage and every time they move behind a piece of scenery, they are mimicking going down a set of stairs. They're like, oh, we have to go down another flight of stairs, and then another flight of stairs and then another flight of stairs, sort of winking to each other and getting fatigued about having to pretend to do it again. There is also, and this is another of the best moments in the script, a section where a character says, go back a word or two and people run through the sentence that they just said backwards, one word at a time, until they get to the particularly important word and then they'll say, that's it. And really, really fascinatingly, even though I have talked about the issues that I have with it and the way that I think it could be funnier and a little more laugh a minute, I would describe this currently as like, on average, you laugh every two and a half minutes. But I do think that there is a dramatic level on which this works in quite a deep way. Stay with me here. I have a thesis. Because if we go back to the Bram Stoker Gothic horror, so many of these stories existed to pose and answer questions. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein being an example of what might society look like if a. You know, what was understood to be the primary purpose of women at the time giving birth to children was made obsolete. Bram Stoker's Dracula posing the question, what would happen if we can't keep our women safe? Honestly, in so many of these, they were just really weird about women. And that's not the entire thing, but it's an interpretation. And this Dracula in The modern day is obviously less concerned with that message. And so what this sort of moves towards instead feels very familiar of Rocky Horror. Now, you can enjoy Rocky Horror for the vibes, but there is also a narrative happening there to do with emboldening a very straight laced, conservative young couple to enjoy their own pleasures and live a slightly more hedonistic and free lifestyle. Dr. Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror. Spoilers for Rocky Horror, by the way, initiates separate sexual encounters with both Brad and Janet, who are a couple. And that doesn't all the way happen in Dracula, a comedy of terrors, but it is hinted at and even commenced a little bit with both Lucy and Jonathan, because I guess Dracula doesn't mind where he's getting that blood as long as it's fresh. And in Rocky Horror, through their encounters with Frank, Brad and Janet each have their own sort of awakenings. And there's a real similarity in the way that Jonathan and Lucy's feelings towards Dracula may have shifted in line with how Brad and Janet feel about Frank N. Furter at the end of Rocky Horror. There's a real proximity of the two there. And so it feels here like Dracula with this more modern sensibility, with this queer identity. Identity may be a sort of a catalyst for Lucy and Jonathan to not only unlock things in their relationship that are a little bit stuck and resolve communication issues that they are having, but also allow them both to be more realized and happy versions of themselves, which ultimately they are. That part I like, and I wish we could lean even more into that and even more into this slightly dangerous idea of the attraction that they do have towards Dracula, rather than it going weirdly Great Gatsby in the second act where he's just like so devoted to Lucy, Dracula that is. And he's just hopelessly in love with her and becomes foolish with it. And much as I enjoy the scene that he has with Jonathan which culminates in the two of them kissing, it's a very long one to one that contains really almost no laughs. And it's just a long time in this kind of a comedy to go without at least a giggle. Let's carry on and talk a little bit more about these characters and these performances. So James Daly is really terrific as Dracula, really understanding of the comedy tone of the whole thing and the ridiculousness of it. That opening scene is so winning when he's finalizing a business transaction with Jonathan, but also flirting with him at the same time. And then in addition to that, it's also a little annoyed by how Particular he is. And he's also working out. And Jonathan is clearly a little bit flustered. But the Dracula vibe is also, like, contemporary, slightly wealthy, a little bit douchey. Like, as he's acquiring all of these properties and talking about getting all his stuff at a farmer's market. Like, it's so modern, it's so silly. One of the best laughs that he gets from this British audience is when he has returned to the home of the Westfelts. Clearly with ulterior motives. But among that also just wants his cake plate back and issues a reminder at one point saying, and also the cake plate. That's hysterically funny. It makes us think vampires, they're just like us. And the senseless erotic response that he has to blood is so over the top, ridiculous, brilliant. It's exactly where this show succeeds. Another of the best additions to this cast, Charlie Stemp as Jonathan. This role was played by Andrew Keenan Bolger in New York, who I thought was very sweet and was very charming in it. But Charlie works on a very different level because it feels a little less contrived, because he feels a lot more at home, firstly in a natural British accent, but also in this very particular and prudish and squeamish little British characterization, it feels less contrived. And so Jonathan, by extension, feels like a less obnoxious character for the beginning portions of it. When he's having that interaction with Dracula that culminates in a kiss. It does feel like there's a real intrigue to it that's played very well. And then he has a whole transformation later on. Spoiler alert here, if you don't want spoilers. But we get to see the vampire side of Jonathan, which Charlie does so brilliantly. He turns into, like a British rock character. It goes a little bit Mick Jagger here. Honestly, this was something. I had no idea how Charlie Stamp was going to do a lot of it. I was really surprised with. I mean, Charlie Stamp was not casting. I expected to see in this, this, because we're used to him at this point, fronting big, all singing, all dancing musicals. He gets to tap dance for a little bit. They have a section where they are on horseback, they're on hobby horses. And it turns briefly into Monty Python. But as they're imitating the clip clop of horse hooves with their feet, he gets to do a little bit of an extended tap sequence there and gets a little round of applause, or at least he did from the audience when I saw the show. Safina Lada plays the Tragic heroine Lucy, as well as other roles. Lucy, conceived here as a more strong willed young woman who seeks out danger and adventure and is a little disappointed in Jonathan, her fiance, for not feeling the same way, for being a little more fearful of just about everything. Which is why there is that exciting electricity and intrigue between her and Dracula. Consistently. One of my favorite parts of the show that she did a great job in delivering is this moment where he really preys upon her in a moment of vulnerability and she runs away and throws herself at the wall and manages to very visibly undo her own nightgown negligee and is sort of tossing herself in a heaving gothic horror heroine type of a way. That's like 2% total eclipse of the Heart. Bonnie Tyler music VIDEO I do think that there's a version of that that could be even more knowing. And interestingly, I enjoyed her performance in this, but I enjoyed her as other characters more so than as Lucy. I think this is a character that begins to grate on me a little bit. Unlike her sister Mina, who is hysterically funny the entire time. Mina is played as a drag character by Sebastian Torquier. The joke being that, you know, Lucy is the beaut, successful, intelligent one. And Mina, as she says, got all of the recessive genes making her now really desperate for love and connection. So she is throwing herself just about every other man at the engagement party. Sebastian Torquier characterizes her with this real manic energy and lands every single line. That's a character that I really enjoy more so than the Van Helsing character that we see in the second act. That's the one that I question how much of this would really be funny if it wasn't a drag character. But Mina I love. Then we have Diane Pilkington, another one I was really surprised to see in this cast because this is not the usual show that we see her in. This is not the usual role that we see her playing on stage. She plays, as they all do, multiple characters in this and mostly male characters. The most impressive feat of which, and she has to do this a few times throughout the play, is her ability to quickly transform and quick change between multiple characters. She will fall out of one window and then a prolonged scream is heard when in reality she's running around the back of the set and emerging in a different costume saying, I thought I heard something. What's going on? That gets a huge round of applause. This happens a couple of times, culminating in, and this is a little disappointing, honestly, a sequence where she has a conversation with herself on stage and is just throwing different wigs over the top of her head because it's a little bit more slapdash and I get that it's happening right in front of us, so there's only so much you could do then. It doesn't read as funny, but it feels like the culmination of this joke that it's been building towards. What might be better is to do a Victor Victoria style half costume and literally she can turn on a 180 and talk to herself the entire time. Although the seating at the Many a Chocolate Factory is really, really wide, that gag isn't going to work for everyone unless she's way upstage and the stage is not that deep really. I'm just explaining away the logistical issues behind why a joke like that wouldn't work. But just throwing the wig vaguely over the fringe, that didn't do it either. And it's emblematic almost of a lot of what this show is, which is funny enough material, and material the likes of which we've been laughing at on screen stage in similar kinds of shows for a couple of decades now. The formula, which has honestly really been perfected by the folks over at Mischief Theatre and which has been seen extensively around the UK with the prolific production of the 39 Steps, has started to feel a little bit tired and it feels like they touch on aspects of it that are a lot more contemporary and untapped, especially with the way that they bring Dracula as a character into this story. That is more of the energy that I would love for this show to lean into a version of it that is crazier and hotter and gayer. I just think that would be fun. In any case, those have been my thoughts about Dracula. A comedy of terrors at the Mini A Chocolate Factory. A legitimately funny show. A wild night out. Go and check it out if you are looking for laughs and if you have seen it already, let us all know what you thought in the comments section down below. Thank you for listening to this new review. Stay tuned for more coming very soon here on YouTube as well as podcast platforms. Make sure you're subscribed following me. You know what to do and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey day. Subscribe.