Last year, one of my theatrical highlights was the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s production of 13. This year, it will be the BOVTS production of Liz Lockhead’s adaptation of Dracula, directed by John Walton that will live long in the memory – one of the most original stagings of the piece you are ever likely to see.

Performed in the dark and dank basement tunnels of the Loco Klub that lurk beneath Brunel’s original Temple Meads station, the audience is led through an immersive experience by an extraordinarily talented BOVTS team.

Heralded by a scream from the tannoy, the audience, looking a bit like a zombie army in the dim light of the tunnels, followed voices and beckoning lights through a series of dramatically-lit vaulted chambers; the dreamy peace of the Westerman sister’s garden, the horrors of Renfield’s incarceration in an asylum, the count’s chandeliered dining hall, and doomed Lucy Westerman’s boudoir all appeared like Madam Tussauds-like tableaux.

Blessed with superb performances from all twelve BOVTS students taking part, at just under three hours in length the play was a highly ambitious project, likely to expose anyone guilty of letting either the pace or the mood slip for a second.But backed by a design, costume and lighting team on top of its game, this was a Dracula experience to savour – these baristas of horror were well capable of serving up a double shot of eeriness and menace.

Ioanna Kimbook as Lucy and Madeleine Schofield as Mina were perfect foils for one another as the Westerman sisters – Lucy with her dreamy insecurities, Mina confident and ambitious. Mina’s beau, the rather naïve solicitor Jonathan Harker, is played to the button by the excellent Charlie Suff, while Max Dinnen gives the clinically driven Doctor Arthur Seward just the right amount of emotional reserve. James Bradwell puts in an astonishing shift as the heavily restrained and sedated asylum patient, Renfield. Driven out of his wits on a starvation diet and heavy medication, Bradwell brings a highly physical performance to Renfield’s character, shot through with personal anguish and tortured by forebodings of a visit from his ‘master’. Stephanie Booth brings steely determination to the vampire slayer Van Helsing, while Lucia Young convinces as the all-suffering chambermaid Florrie Hatherage.

Taheen Modak, as Dracula, seethed with malevolent intent throughout. His arrival and subsequent appearances provided pinnacles of darkness as would befit a king of the undead. Later in his blood lusts with Lucy and Mina, Modak gave the role the imperiousness it needed to chill and thrill us in equal measure.

At an hour and a half to reach the interval, this great tale could have been edited back without losing its thread. But once the count makes his first appearance, we are swept from crisis to crisis to an ever-present backdrop of mournful wind and the occasional distant baying of hungry wolves.

A step beyond theatre in the round, being this up close and personal to a vampire is something you will not forget in a hurry! Catch it while you can.    ★★★★★    Simon Bishop   11^th March 2018