Count Dracula

A three-act play based on Bram Stoker’s nineteenth-century novel. In Ted Tiller’s comedic version of Stoker’s vampire legend, a new Count has moved into a remote neighbourhood north of London. Sybil, the friendly sister of the director of the local mental institution, Dr Seward, invites him to dinner at her family’s combination home and insane asylum, where Count Dracula meets Mina, Dr Seward’s beautiful and virtuous young ward.

As quick as a flap of a bat’s wing, the evil Count sees Mina as not only a tasty morsel but also a potential bride. Mina is mesmerized by the Count, and every time he comes to visit she seems weaker and looks paler.

No one nails Dracula as the source of Mina’s stupor until the eccentric Professor Van Helsing arrives from Amsterdam. Because he is a specialist in rare maladies by profession and a scourge of vampires by vocation, Van Helsing immediately notices the two tiny puncture wounds in Mina’s neck.

This version, while full of comedy and remarkable special effects, nevertheless retains the original’s sense of conflict between the forces of good and evil.