Dracula

Dracula, a book built of shadows, mist and thinly-repressed carnality, is a naturally brooding work. It mopes with Victorian gothic gusto.

Action To The Word's production, however, broods more like a teenage boy locked in his bedroom. The music, the lust, and the emoting are all cranked off the scale. Heck, they’ve even invented a lesbian doctor to complete the adolescent male fantasy.

The result is an utterly silly steampunk version of Bram Stoker’s tale of the undead Transylvanian count and his pursuit of Mina Harker.

The whole thing plays like a Muse concept album. Fitting, then, as several of the songs, all played live by the versatile and impressive cast, are by the pomp rockers. Radiohead’s 'Creep' is reprised several times for added alienation.

Mercifully, Dracula knows and embraces its ridiculousness. The production slobbers over the nubile young flesh of its cast as a vampire would. Lacy bodices and chiselled chests abound.

It is at its best in its opening half, when the plot gives it space to laugh at its own gory high camp. But as the final confrontation with Dracula approaches, an air of seriousness tightens around the show. As if to compensate, the lights get brighter, the music gets louder, the pomp gets pompier, and the whole thing struggles to support the weight of its own daftness.

Like the vampire himself, the show is visually seductive and has many dark charms, but upon reflection lacks a bit of soul.