Panto may be off the menu at the Park Theatre this year, but the substitute dish is hardly short on seasonal silliness. Dracapella, a merrily unhinged reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, arrives with a fangful of puns, a clutch of power ballads and a beatboxer where you’d usually expect a band. It’s a gamble—but one that mostly pays off with giddy, garlic-tinged zaniness.

Co-written by TV writer/producer Dan Patterson (of Whose Line Is It Anyway? lineage) and Jez Bond, who also directs, the show hews loosely—very loosely—to Stoker’s original. We still have the earnest solicitor Jonathan Harker, the indefatigable Van Helsing, Mina’s peril, a lunatic asylum and even a trip to Whitby. But fidelity ends there: this is Dracula as you’ve never seen it.

On the Park 200’s stage are a variety of wooden crates, suitcases and a coffin – all of which will be used to denote various locations during the play. Its most vital prop, however, is Alexander Belgarion Hackett—better known as ABH Beatbox—who supplies every beat, drone, whoosh and creak with nothing but his vocal cords. He’s the engine of the entire enterprise, powering harmonies, punctuating punchlines and providing a plethora of sound effects from flapping bats to rattling windows from train noises to creaking coffins.

The cast (who double-up on parts), are a glittering bunch by any standard. Olivier Award winners Stephen Ashfield (a perfectly pitched Harker) and Lorna Want (a warm, steady Mina) blend seamlessly with Broadway’s Keala Settle (the bearded lady in the movie version of The Greatest Showman), who unleashes her trademark vocal heft with comic verve. Ako Mitchell’s Dracula is a gloriously arch creation—part lounge lizard, part undead lothario—while Ciarán Dowd’s Van Helsing steals scenes with his comedic talents – there are cheesy Dutch accent gags galore. Philip Pope brings his veteran musical-parody chops honed on Spitting Image, and Monique Ashe-Palmer, as Pustula, is a delight.

The musical numbers, delivered in lush a cappella harmonies, are the show’s undeniable highlight and include “Somebody to Love”, “Holding Out for a Hero”, “Eye of the Tiger” and even “Midnight Train to Georgia” (rerouted via Dover), are performed with mischievous abandon. Between songs, Patterson and Bond sling gags with reckless frequency: some soar, some sink, and a few arrive with the thud of a stake missing its mark. Still, the fourth wall breaks, non-sequiturs, puns (lots and lots of puns), references from film and TV—keep the pace brisk and the audience on their toes – especially as one member was nearly hit by a flying severed head!.

If Dracapella has a weakness, it’s one of length. At a little over two hours (including an interval), the show could profit from losing a joke and a song or four; a lean 90-minute straight-through sprint would sharpen its comedic bite.

Still, as Patterson gleefully offers in the programme: “Fangs for coming” (the man can’t resist a pun). For a show this knowingly silly, it’s hard not to bare a smile and sink your teeth into Dracapella in return.

Four Stars

Reviewed by Alan Fitter.

https://parktheatre.co.uk/events/dracapella/