![RabbitDracula[2]](http://www.shropshire-events-guide.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RabbitDracula2.jpg)
Chris Eldon Lee reviews Rabbit Theatre’s ‘Dracula’, which he saw at Snailbeach Village Hall.
Having been lumbered with the birth name ‘Christopher Lee’…I’ve had a life long relationship with Dracula. Actually I owe him a favour. Because he was regularly played by the actor that shared my name, an astrologer friend of mine recommended I include my middle moniker for professional purposes. I’m convinced it was that advice that gave me a foothold on the bottom rung of the BBC – a position I have managed to maintain ever since. Still, I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been christened James Bond.
This ‘Dracula’ is one of the best I have seen because it excels at what Dracula does best – it conjures up the audience’s imagination and then plays with it mercilessly; and in this instance, hilariously. And bearing in mind it’s all done by one man with just half a dozen blood-red and moon-glow lights and a handful of home-made props, it is quite brilliant.
The one man is David Mynne, a veteran founder of the ground breaking Kneehigh Theatre Company. He walks a swaying tightrope between horror and humour – and the gruesome and the ridiculous – with just a lifetime’s acting experience as his balancing bar.
His most complicated prop is the ‘Three Brides of Dracula’; three undead Barbie Dolls on a skewer. Everybody else, he plays himself; having great fun with pocket characterisations of fated woman and sterling men. His bespectacled Van Helsing is a hoot…lisping his way through his lines; for example, “ish wash love at thirst shite”.
But, radio fans, it is the remarkable sound effects that steal this show….all made by Mr Myne with his very own mouth. The bats are easy: “flap, flap, squeek, flap, flap”. But he also creates an entire shaving routine and a complicated blood transfusion using just his bare hands and an array of fearsome vocal effects that might interest the makers of Dr Who.
And having buffed up our imaginations, he then conducts a whole scene using just the shadow of his finger tips before an illuminated globe…and the whole of Snailbeach saw exactly what he was getting at.
This is a sensationally simple show. Forget CGI. It’s a faithful telling of the whole, gory story with unbounded ingenuity, magical mimicry and wicked wit; an absolute treat which had the whole audience on its feet, baying for more.
It’s been brought here by the valiant Arts Alive rural touring organisation, which, along with most of the county’s other adventurous arts outfits, is about to have the life blood sucked out of it by a throat-slashing Shropshire Council. To object to the funding cuts go to:
To find out where to see the show go to: www. rabbittheatre.com
Locally, it’s at Ledbury’s Market Theatre on Saturday 31st October 2015