Dracula

Acclaimed poet and playwright Liz Lochheads Dracula stays refreshingly close to Bram Stokers classic novel.

Asked to adapt it by the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, she immersed herself in the book. After a sleepless night, she writes in the Introduction, my hair was standing on end, what with the mad Renfield in his lunatic asylum eating flies and playing John the Baptist to his coming master… and with Lucys description of her "dream" of flying with the red-eyed one above the lighthouse at Whitby, and Jonathans "dream" of the three Vampire Brides advances upon him and of their being repelled at the last minute by the furious Dracula…

This was before Id even got to the abducted children or "the loving hand" of Lucys fiancé staking her through the heart… or that shocking rape-like bit where, with Minas newly-wed husband Jonathan asleep in a flushed stupor by her side, Dracula, at her throat, takes his fill of her lifes-blood…

Still, what really attracted me to the story was Rule One for becoming a vampire-victim: "First of all you have to invite him in."

Liz Lochheads stage adaptation of Dracula was first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1985.

Ideal for schools and drama groups, this Dracula is all the more chilling for the respect it shows for Stokers original nightmare creation.